EUREKA: 


PROSE         POEM 


BY 


EDGAR  A.   POE 


NEW-YORK: 
GEO.     P.     PU  TN  AM, 

OF     LATE     FIRM     OF     "WILEY     &     PUTNAM 
155    BROADWAY. 

MDCCCXLVni. 


ENTERED,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1848, 

BY  EDGAR  A.  POE, 
la  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New- York. 


1.  H;  AVITT,  TROW  &  Cc    Prs , 
33  Ann-street. 


WITH  VERY  PROFOUND  RESPECT, 

&&is  iSJEJorlt  fs  ZJeTJicatelJ 

TO 

ALEXANDER  VON  HUMBOLDT. 


PREFACE. 


To  the  few  who  love  me  and  whom  I  love — to  those 
who  feel  rather  than  to  those  who  think — to  the  dreamers 
and  those  who  put  faith  in  dreams  as  in  the  only  realities — 
I  offer  this  Book  of  Truths,  not  in  its  character  of  Truth- 
Teller,  but  for  the  Beauty  that  abounds  in  its  Truth ;  con 
stituting  it  true.  To  these  I  present  the  composition  as  an 
Art-Product  alone  : — let  us  say  as  a  Romance  ;  or,  if  I  be 
not  urging  too  lofty  a  claim,  as  a  Poem. 

What  I  here  propound  is  true: — therefore  it  cannot 
die  : — or  if  by  any  means  it  be  now  trodden  down  so  that  it 
die,  it  will  "  rise  again  to  the  Life  Everlasting." 

Nevertheless  it  is  as  a  Poem  only  that  I  wish  this  work 

to  be  judged  after  I  am  dead. 

E.  A.  P. 


EUREKA: 

AN  ESSAY  ON  THE  MATERIAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  UNIVERSE. 


IT  is  with  humility  really  unassumed — it  is  with  a  senti 
ment  even  of  awe — that  I  pen  the  opening  sentence  of  this 
work  :  for  of  all  conceivable  subjects  I  approach  the  reader 
with  the  most  solemn — the  most  comprehensive — the  most 
difficult — the  most  august. 

What  terms  shall  I  find  sufficiently  simple  in  their  sub 
limity — sufficiently  sublime  in  their  simplicity — for  the  mere 
enunciation  of  my  theme  ? 

I  design  to  speak  of  the  Physical,  Metaphysical  and 
Mathematical — of  the  Material  and  Spiritual  Universe : — 
of  its  Essence,  its  Origin,  its  Creation,  its  Present  Condi 
tion  and  its  Destiny.  I  shall  be  so  rash,  moreover,  as  to 
challenge  the  conclusions,  and  thus,  in  effect,  to  question 
the  sagacity,  of  many  of  the  greatest  and  most  justly  rever 
enced  of  men. 


EUREKA. 


In  the  beginning,  let  me  as  distinctly  as  possible  announce 
— not  the  theorem  which  I  hope  to  demonstrate — for,  what 
ever  the  mathematicians  may  assert,  there  is,  in  this  world 
at  least,  no  such  thing  as  demonstration — but  the  ruling 
idea  which,  throughout  this  volume,  I  shall  be  continually 
endeavoring  to  suggest. 

My  general  proposition,  then,  is  this  : — In  the  Original 
Unity  of  the  First  Thing  lies  the  Secondary  Cause  of  All 
Things,  with  the  Germ  of  their  Inevitable  Annihilation. 

In  illustration  of  this  idea,  I  propose  to  take  such  a  sur 
vey  of  the  Universe  that  the  mind  may  be  able  really  to 
receive  and  to  perceive  an  individual  impression. 

He  who  from  the  top  of  ^Etna  casts  his  eyes  leisurely 
around,  is  affected  chiefly  by  the  extent  and  diversity  of  the 
scene.  Only  by  a  rapid  whirling  on  his  heel  could  he  hope 
to  comprehend  the  panorama  in  the  sublimity  of  its  oneness. 
But  as,  on  the  summit  of  ^Etna,  no  man  has  thought  of 
whirling  on  his  heel,  so  no  man  has  ever  taken  into  his 
brain  the  full  uniqueness  of  the  prospect ;  and  so,  again, 
whatever  considerations  lie  involved  in  this  uniqueness, 
have  as  yet  no  practical  existence  for  mankind. 

I  do  not  know  a  treatise  in  which  a  survey  of  the  Uni 
verse — using  the  word  in  its  most  comprehensive  and  only 
legitimate  acceptation — is  taken  at  all : — and  it  may  be  as 
well  here  to  mention  that  by  the  term  "  Universe,"  wherever 
employed  without  qualification  in  this  essay,  I  mean  to  de 
signate  the  utmost  conceivable  expanse  of  space,  with  all 
things,  spiritual  and  material,  that  can  be  imagined  to  exist 
within  the  compass  of  that  expanse.  In  speaking  of  what  is^ 
ordinarily  implied  by  the  expression,  "  Universe,"  I  shall 


THE     UNIVERSE. 


take  a  phrase  of  limitation — "  the  Universe  of  stars."  Why 
this  distinction  is  considered  necessary,  will  be  seen  in  the 
sequel. 

But  even  of  treatises  on  the  really  limited,  although 
always  assumed  as  the  unlimited,  Universe  of  stars,  I  know 
none  in  which  a  survey,  even  of  this  limited  Universe,  is 
so  taken  as  to  warrant  deductions  from  its  individuality. 
The  nearest  approach  to  such  a  work  is  made  in  the  "  Cos 
mos"  of  Alexander  Von  Humboldt.  He  presents  the  sub 
ject,  however,  not  in  its  individuality  but  in  its  generality. 
His  theme,  in  its  last  result,  is  the  law  of  each  portion  of  the 
merely  physical  Universe,  as  this  law  is  related  to  the  laws 
of  every  other  portion  of  this  merely  physical  Universe.  His 
design  is  simply  synoeretical.  In  a  word,  he  discusses  the 
universality  of  material  relation,  and  discloses  to  the  eye  of 
Philosophy  whatever  inferences  have  hitherto  lain  hidden 
behind  this  universality.  But  however  admirable  be  the 
succinctness  with  which  he  has  treated  each  particular 
point  of  his  topic,  the  mere  multiplicity  of  these  points  occa 
sions,  necessarily,  an  amount  of  detail,  and  thus  an  involu 
tion  of  idea,  which  preclude  all  individuality  of  impres 
sion. 

It  seems  to  me  that,  in  aiming  at  this  latter  effect,  and, 
through  it,  at  the  consequences — the  conclusions — the  sug 
gestions — the  speculations — or,  if  nothing  better  offer  itself, 
the  mere  guesses  which  may  result  from  it — we  require 
something  like  a  mental  gyration  on  the  heel.  We  need  so 
rapid  a  revolution  of  all  things  about  the  central  point  of 
sight  that,  while  the  minutiae  vanish  altogether,  even  the 

1* 


10  EUREKA. 


more  conspicuous  objects  become  blended  into  one.  Among 
the  vanishing  minutiae,  in  a  survey  of  this  kind,  would  be  all 
exclusively  terrestrial  matters.  The  Earth  would  be  con 
sidered  in  its  planetary  relations  alone.  A  man,  in  this 
view,  becomes  mankind ;  mankind  a  member  of  the  cosmi- 
cal  family  of  Intelligences. 

And  now,  before  proceeding  to  our  subject  proper,  let 
me  beg  the  reader's  attention  to  an  extract  or  two  from  a 
somewhat  remarkable  letter,  which  appears  to  have  been 
found  corked  in  a  bottle  and  floating  on  the  Mare  Tenebra- 
rum — an  ocean  well  described  by  the  Nubian  geographer, 
Ptolemy  Hephestion,  but  little  frequented  in  modern  days 
unless  by  the  Transcendentalists  and  some  other  divers  for 
crotchets.  The  date  of  this  letter,  I  confess,  surprises  me 
even  more  particularly  than  its  contents  ;  for  it  seems  to 
have  been  written  in  the  year  two  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  forty-eight.  As  for  the  passages  I  am  about  to  trans 
cribe,  they,  I  fancy,  will  speak  for  themselves. 

"  Do  you  know,  my  dear  friend,"  says  the  writer,  ad 
dressing,  no  doubt,  a  contemporary — "  Do  you  know  that  it 
is  scarcely  more  than  eight  or  nine  hundred  years  ago  since 
the  metaphysicians  first  consented  to  relieve  the  people  of 
the  singular  fancy  that  there  exist  but  two  practicable  roads 
to  Truth  ?  Believe  it  if  you  can !  It  appears,  however,  that 
long,  long  ago,  in  the  night  of  Time,  there  lived  a  Turkish 
philosopher  called  Aries  and  surnamed  Tottle."  [Here,  pos 
sibly,  the  letter- writer  means  Aristotle ;  the  best  names  are 
wretchedly  corrupted  in  two  or  three  thousand  years.]  "  The 
fame  of  this  great  man  depended  mainly  upon  his  demon 
stration  that  sneezing  is  a  natural  provision,  by  means  of 


THE     UNIVERSE.  11 

which  over-profound  thinkers  are  enabled  to  expel  superflu 
ous  ideas  through  the  nose  ;  but  he  obtained  a  scarcely  less 
valuable  celebrity  as  the  founder,  or  at  all  events  as  the 
principal  propagator,  of  what  was  termed  the  Reductive  or 
a  priori  philosophy.  He  started  with  what  he  maintained 
to  be  axioms,  or  self-evident  truths  : — and  the  now  well  un 
derstood  fact  that  no  truths  are  se/f-evident,  really  does  not 
make  in  the  slightest  degree  against  his  speculations : — it 
was  sufficient  for  his  purpose  that  the  truths  in  question 
were  evident  at  all.  From  axioms  he  proceeded,  logically, 
to  results.  His  most  illustrious  disciples  were  one  Tuclid,  a 
geometrician,"  [meaning  Euclid]  "and  one  Kant,  a  Dutch 
man,  the  originator  of  that  species  of  Transcendentalism 
which,  with  the  change  r»erely  of  a  C  for  a  K,  now  bears 
his  peculiar  name. 

"  Well,  Aries  TottJe  flourished  supreme,  until  the  advent 
of  one  Hog,  surna^ied  '  the  Ettrick  shepherd/  who  preached 
an  entirely  different  system,  which  he  called  the  a  posteriori 
or  inductive.  His  plan  referred  altogether  to  sensation. 
He  proceeded  by  observing,  analyzing,  and  classifying  facts 
— iastanticB  Natures,  as  they  were  somewhat  affectedly 
called — and  arranging  them  into  general  laws.  In  a  word, 
while  the  mode  of  Aries  rested  on  noumena,  that  of  Hog 
depended  on  phenomena  ;  and  so  great  was  the  admiration 
excited  by  this  latter  system  that,  at  its  first  introduction, 
Aries  fell  into  general  disrepute.  Finally,  however,  he 
recovered  ground,  and  was  permitted  to  divide  the  empire 
of  Philosophy  with  his  more  modern  rival : — the  savans 
contenting  themselves  with  proscribing  all  other  competi 
tors,  past,  present,  and  to  come ;  putting  an  end  to  all  con- 


12  EUREKA. 


troversy  on  the  topic  by  the  promulgation  of  a  Median  law, 
to  the  effect  that  the  Aristotelian  and  Baconian  roads  are, 
and  of  right  ought  to  be,  the  sole  possible  avenues  to  know 
ledge  : — '  Baconian/  you  must  know,  my  dear  friend,"  adds 
the  letter- writer  at  this  point,  "  was  an  adjective  invented 
as  equivalent  to  Hog-ian,  and  at  the  same  time  more  digni 
fied  and  euphonious. 

"  Now  I  do  assure  you  most  positively"  —  proceeds  the 
epistle — "  that  I  represent  these  matters  fairly  ;  and  you  can 
easily  understand  how  restrictions  so  absurd  on  their  very 
face  must  have  operated,  in  those  days,  to  retard  the  pro 
gress  of  true  Science,  which  makes  its  most  important 
advances — as  all  History  wi\l  show — by  seemingly  intuitive 
leaps.  These  ancient  ideas  confined  investigation  to  crawl 
ing  ;  and  I  need  not  suggest  to  you  that  crawling,  among 
varieties  of  locomotion,  is  a  very  capital  thing  of  its  kind ; — 
but  because  the  tortoise  is  sure  of  foot,  for  this  reason  must 
we  clip  the  wings  of  the  eagles  ?  For  maivy  centuries,  so 
great  was  the  infatuation,  about  Hog  especially,  that  a  vir 
tual  stop  was  put  to  all  thinking,  properly  so  calit/i.  No 
man  dared  utter  a  truth  for  which  he  felt  himself  indebted 
to  his  soul  alone.  It  mattered  not  whether  the  truth  was 
even  demonstrably  such  ;  for  the  dogmatizing  philosophers 
of  that  epoch  regarded  only  the  road  by  which  it  professed 
to  have  been  attained.  The  end,  with  them,  was  a  point  of 
no  moment,  whatever  : — '  the  means !'  they  vociferated — 
*  let  us  look  at  the  means !' — and  if,  on  scrutiny  of  the  means, 
it  was  found  to  come  neither  under  the  category  Hog,  nor 
under  the  category  Aries  (which  means  ram),  why  then  the 
savans  went  no  farther,  but,  calling  the  thinker  a  fool  and 


THE     UNIVERSE.  13 

branding  him  a  '  theorist,'  would  never,  thenceforward,  have 
any  thing  to  do  either  with  him  or  with  his  truths. 

"Now,  my  dear  friend,"  continues  the  letter- writer,  "it 
cannot  be  maintained  that  by  the  crawling  system,  exclu 
sively  adopted,  men  would  arrive  at  the  maximum  amount 
of  truth,  even  in  any  long  series  of  ages  ;  for  the  repression 
of  imagination  was  an  evil  not  to  be  counterbalanced  even 
by  absolute  certainty  in  the  snail  processes.  But  their  cer 
tainty  was  very  far  from  absolute.  The  error  of  our  pro 
genitors  was  quite  analogous  with  that  of  the  wiseacre  who 
fancies  he  must  necessarily  see  an  object  the  more  distinctly, 
the  more  closely  he  holds  it  to  his  eyes.  They  blinded 
themselves,  too,  with  the  impalpable,  titillating  Scotch  snuff 
of  detail ;  and  thus  the  boasted  facts  of  the  Hog-ites  were 
by  no  means  always  facts — a  point  of  little  importance  but 
for  the  assumption  that  they  always  were.  The  vital  taint, 
however,  in  Baconianism: — its  most  lamentable  fount  of 
error — lay  in  its  tendency  to  throw  power  and  considera 
tion  into  the  hands  of  merely  perceptive  men — of  those 
inter-Tritonic  minnows,  the  microscopical  savans — the  dig 
gers  and  pedlers  of  minute  facts,  for  the  most  part  in  physi 
cal  science — facts  all  of  which  they  retailed  at  the  same  price 
upon  the  highway  ;  their  value  depending,  it  was  supposed, 
simply  upon  the  fact  of  their  fact,  without  reference  to 
their  applicability  or  inapplicability  in  the  development  of 
those  ultimate  and  only  legitimate  facts,  called  Law. 

"  Than  the  persons" — the  letter  goes  on  to  say — "  Than 
the  persons  thus  suddenly  elevated  by  the  Hog-ian  philoso 
phy  into  a  station  for  which  they  were  unfitted — thus  trans 
ferred  from  the  sculleries  into  the  parlors  of  Science — 


14  E  U  HE  K  A. 


from  its  pantries  into  its  pulpits — than  these  individuals  a 
more  intolerant  —  a  more  intolerable  set  of  bigots  and 
tyrants  never  existed  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Their  creed, 
their  text  and  their  sermon  were,  alike,  the  one  word  'fact' 
— but,  for  the  most  part,  even  of  this  one  word,  they  knew 
not  even  the  meaning.  On  those  who  ventured  to  disturb 
their  facts  with  the  view  of  putting  them  in  order  and  to 
use,  the  disciples  of  Hog  had  no  mercy  whatever.  All  at 
tempts  at  generalization  were  met  at  once  by  the  words 
'theoretical,'  'theory,'  'theorist' — all  thought,  to  be  brief, 
was  very  properly  resented  as  a  personal  affront  to  them 
selves.  Cultivating  the  natural  sciences  to  the  exclusion  of 
Metaphysics,  the  Mathematics,  and  Logic,  many  of  these 
Bacon-engendered  philosophers — one-idead,  one-sided  and 
lame  of  a  leg — were  more  wretchedly  helpless — more  mis 
erably  ignorant,  in  view  of  all  the  comprehensible  objects 
of  knowledge,  than  the  veriest  unlettered  hind  who  proves 
that  he  knows  something  at  least,  in  admitting  that  he 
knows  absolutely  nothing. 

"  Nor  had  our  forefathers  any  better  right  to  talk  about 
certainty,  when  pursuing,  in  blind  confidence,  the  a  priori 
path  of  axioms,  or  of  the  Ram.  At  innumerable  points  this 
path  was  scarcely  as  straight  as  a  ram's-horn.  The  simple 
truth  is,  that  the  Aristotelians  erected  their  castles  upon  a 
basis  far  less  reliable  than  air ;  for  no  such  things  as*axioms 
ever  existed  or  can  possibly  exist  at  all.  This  they  must 
have  been  very  blind,  indeed,  not  to  see,  or  at  least  to  sus 
pect  ;  for,  even  in  their  own  day,  many  of  their  long-ad 
mitted  '  axioms'  had  been  abandoned  : — '  ex  nihilo  nihiljit,' 
for  example,  and  a  'thing  cannot  act  where  it  is  not/  and 


THE     UNIVERSE.  15 

'there  cannot  be  antipodes/  and  'darkness  cannot  proceed 
from  light.'  These  and  numerous  similar  propositions  for 
merly  accepted,  without  hesitation,  as  axioms,  or  undeniable 
truths,  were,  even  at  the  period  of  which  I  speak,  seen  to 
be  altogether  untenable  : — how  absurd  in  these  people,  then, 
to  persist  in  relying  upon  a  basis,  as  immutable,  whose  mu 
tability  had  become  so  repeatedly  manifest ! 

"But,  even  through  evidence  afforded  by  themselves 
against  themselves,  it  is  easy  to  convict  these  a  priori 
reasoners  of  the  grossest  unreason — it  is  easy  to  show  the 
futility — the  impalpability  of  their  axioms  in  general.  I 
have  now  lying  before  me" — it  will  be  observed  that  we 
still  proceed  with  the  letter — "  I  have  now  lying  before  me 
a  book  printed  about  a  thousand  years  ago.  Pundit  assures 
me  that  it  is  decidedly  the  cleverest  ancient  work  on  its 
topic,  which  is  '  Logic/  The  author,  who  was  much 
esteemed  in  his  day,  was  one  Miller,  or  Mill ;  and  we  find 
it  recorded  of  him,  as  a  point  of  some  importance,  that  he 
rode  a  mill-horse  whom  he  called  Jeremy  Bentham : — but 
let  us  glance  at  the  volume  itself! 

"  Ah ! — '  Ability  or  inability  to  conceive/  says  Mr.  Mill 
very  properly,  '  is  in  no  case  to  be  received  as  a  criterion  of 
axiomatic  truth/  Now,  that  this  is  a  palpable  truism  no 
one  in  his  senses  will  deny.  Not  to  admit  the  proposition, 
is  to  insinuate  a  charge  of  variability  in  Truth  itself,  whose 
very  title  is  a  synonym  of  the  Steadfast.  ,  If  ability  to  con 
ceive  be  taken  as  a  criterion  of  Truth,  then  a  truth  to 
David  Hume  would  very  seldom  be  a  truth  to  Joe ;  and 
ninety-nine  hundredths  of  what  is  undeniable  in  Heaven 
would  be  demonstrable  falsity  upon  Earth.  The  proposition 


16  EUREKA. 


of  Mr.  Mill,  then,  is  sustained.  I  will  not  grant  it  to  be  an 
axiom  ;  and  this  merely  because  I  am  showing  that  no 
axioms  exist ;  but,  with  a  distinction  which  could  not  have 
been  cavilled  at  even  by  Mr.  Mill  himself,  1  am  ready  to 
grant  that,  if  an  axiom  there  be,  then  the  proposition  of  which 
we  speak  has  the  fullest  right  to  be  considered  an  axiom — that 
no  more  absolute  axiom  is — and,  consequently,  that  any 
subsequent  proposition  which  shall  conflict  with  this  one 
primarily  advanced,  must  be  either  a  falsity  in  itself — that 
is  to  say  no  axiom — or,  if  admitted  axiomatic,  must  at  once 
neutralize  both  itself  and  its  predecessor. 

"  And  now,  by  the  logic  of  their  own  propounder,  let  us 
proceed  to  test  any  one  of  the  axioms  propounded.  Let  us 
give  Mr.  Mill  the  fairest  of  play.  We  will  bring  the  point 
to  no  ordinary  issue.  We  will  select  for  investigation  no 
common-place  axiom — no  axiom  of  what,  not  the  less  pre 
posterously  because  only  impliedly,  he  terms  his  secondary 
class — as  if  a  positive  truth  by  definition  could  be  either 
more  or  less  positively  a  truth  : — we  will  select,  I  say,  no 
axiom  of  an  unquestionability  so  questionable  as  is  to  be 
found  in  Euclid.  We  will  not  talk,  for  example,  about  such 
propositions  as  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a 
space,  or  that  the  whole  is  greater  than  any  one  of  its  parts. 
We  will  afford  the  logician  every  advantage.  We  will  come 
at  once  to  a  proposition  which  he  regards  as  the  acme  of  the 
unquestionable — as  the  quintessence  of  axiomatic  undeni- 
ability.  Here  it  is: — 'Contradictions  cannot  both  be  true 
— that  is,  cannot  coexist  in  nature.'  Here  Mr.  Mill  means, 
for  instance, — and  I  give  the  most  forcible  instance  conceiv 
able — that  a  tree  must  be  either  a  tree  or  not  a  tree — that 


THE     UNIVERSE.  17 

it  cannot  be  at  the  same  time  a  tree  and  not  a  tree : — all 
which  is  quite  reasonable  of  itself  and  will  answer  remark 
ably  well  as  an  axiom,  until  we  bring  it  into  collation  with 
an  axiom  insisted  upon  a  few  pages  before — in  other  words 
— words  which  I  have  previously  employed — until  we  test 
it  by  the  logic  of  its  own  propounder.  '  A  tree,'  Mr.  Mill 
asserts,  '  must  be  either  a  tree  or  not  a  tree.'  Very  well : 
— and  now  let  me  ask  him,  why.  To  this  little  query  there 
is  but  one  response : — I  defy  any  man  living  to  invent  a 
second.  The  sole  answer  is  this : — *  Because  we  find  it 
impossible  to  conceive  that  a  tree  can  be  any  thing  else  than 
a  tree  or  not  a  tree.'  This,  I  repeat,  is  Mr.  Mill's  sole 
answer  : — he  will  not  pretend  to  suggest  another  : — and 
yet,  by  his  own  showing,  his  answer  is  clearly  no  answer 
at  all ;  for  has  he  not  already  required  us  to  admit,  as  an 
axiom,  that  ability  or  inability  to  conceive  is  in  no  case  to 
be  taken  as  a  criterion  of  axiomatic  truth?  Thus  all — 
absolutely  all  his  argumentation  is  at  sea  without  a  rudder. 
Let  it  not  be  urged  that  an  exception  from  the  general  rule 
is  to  be  made,  in  cases  where  the  '  impossibility  to  con 
ceive'  is  so  peculiarly  great  as  when  we  are  called  upon  to 
conceive  a  tree  both  a  tree  and  not  a  tree.  Let  no  attempt, 
I  say,  be  made  at  urging  this  sotticism ;  for,  in  the  first 
place,  there  are  no  degrees  of  '  impossibility,'  and  thus  no 
one  impossible  conception  can  be  more  peculiarly  impossible 
than  another  impossible  conception  : — in  the  second  place, 
Mr.  Mill  himself,  no  doubt  after  thorough  deliberation,  has 
most  distinctly,  and  most  rationally,  excluded  all  opportu 
nity  for  exception,  by  the  emphasis  of  his  proposition,  that, 
in  no  case,  is  ability  or  inability  to  conceive,  to  be  taken  as 


18  EUREKA. 


a  criterion  of  axiomatic  truth : — in  the  third  place,  even 
were  exceptions  admissible  at  all,  it  remains  to  be  shown 
how  any  exception  is  admissible  here.  That  a  tree  can  be 
both  a  tree  and  not  a  tree,  is  an  idea  which  the  angels,  or 
the  devils,  may  entertain,  and  which  no  doubt  many  an 
earthly  Bedlamite,  or  Transcendentalist,  does. 

"  Now  I  do  not  quarrel  with  these  ancients,"  continues 
the  letter- writer,  "  so  much  on  account  of  the  transparent 
frivolity  of  their  logic — which,  to  be  plain,  was  baseless, 
worthless  and  fantastic  altogether — as  on  account  of  their 
pompous  and  infatuate  proscription  of  all  other  roads  to 
Truth  than  the  two  narrow  and  crooked  paths — the  one 
of  creeping  and  the  other  of  crawling — to  which,  in  their 
ignorant  perversity,  they  have  dared  to  confine  the  Soul — 
the  Soul  which  loves  nothing  so  well  as  to  soar  in  those 
regions  of  illimitable  intuition  which  are  utterly  incognizant 
of  'path.' 

"  By  the  bye,  my  dear  friend,  is  it  not  an  evidence  of 
the  mental  slavery  entailed  upon  those  bigoted  people  by 
their  Hogs  and  Rams,  that  in  spite  of  the  eternal  prating 
of  their  savans  about  roads  to  Truth,  none  of  them  fell, 
even  by  accident,  into  what  we  now  so  distinctly  perceive 
to  be  the  broadest,  the  straightest  and  most  available  of  all 
mere  roads — the  great  thoroughfare — the  majestic  highway 
of  the  Consistent  ?  Is  it  not  wonderful  that  they  should 
have  failed  to  deduce  from  the  works  of  God  the  vitally 
momentous  consideration  that  a  perfect  consistency  can  be 
nothing  but  an  absolute  truth  ?  How  plain — how  rapid 
our  progress  since  the  late  announcement  of  this  proposi 
tion  !  By  its  means,  investigation  has  been  taken  out  of 


THE     UNIVERSE.  19 

the  hands  of  the  ground-moles,  and  given  as  a  duty,  rather 
than  as  a  task,  to  the  true — to  the  only  true  thinkers — to 
the  generally-educated  men  of  ardent  imagination.  These 
latter — our  Keplers — our  Laplaces — '  speculate' — '  theorize' 
— these  are  the  terms — can  you  not  fancy  the  shout  of  scorn 
with  which  they  would  be  received  by  our  progenitors, 
were  it  possible  for  them  to  be  looking  over  my  shoulders 
as  I  write  ?  The  Keplers,  I  repeat,  speculate — theorize — 
and  their  theories  are  merely  corrected — reduced — sifted — 
cleared,  little  by  little,  of  their  chaff  of  inconsistency — until 
at  length  there  stands  apparent  an  unencumbered  Consist 
ency — a  consistency  which  the  most  stolid  admit — because 
it  is  a  consistency — to  be  an  absolute  and  an  unquestion 
able  Truth. 

"  I  have  often  thought,  my  friend,  that  it  must  have  puz 
zled  these  dogmaticians  of  a  thousand  years  ago,  to  deter 
mine,  even,  by  which  of  their  two  boasted  roads  it  is  that 
the  cryptographist  attains  the  solution  of  the  more  compli 
cate  cyphers — or  by  which  of  them  Champollion  guided 
mankind  to  those  important  and  innumerable  truths  which, 
for  so  many  centuries,  have  lain  entombed  amid  the  phone- 
tical  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt.  In  especial,  would  it  not  have 
given  these  bigots  some  trouble  to  determine  by  which  of 
their  two  roads  was  reached  the  most  momentous  and  sub 
lime  of  all  their  truths — the  truth — the  fact  of  gravitation  ? 
Newton  deduced  it  from  the  laws  of  Kepler.  Kepler  ad 
mitted  that  these  laws  he  guessed — these  laws  whose  inves 
tigation  disclosed  to  the  greatest  of  British  astronomers  that 
principle,  the  basis  of  all  (existing)  physical  principle,  in 
going  behind  which  we  enter  at  once  the  nebulous  kingdom 


20  EUREKA. 


of  Metaphysics.  Yes  ! — these  vital  laws  Kepler  guessed — 
that  is  to  say,  he  imagined  them.  Had  he  been  asked  to 
point  out  either  the  Reductive  or  inductive  route  by  which 
he  attained  them,  his  reply  might  have  been — '  I  know 
nothing  about  routes — but  I  do  know  the  machinery  of  the 
Universe.  Here  it  is.  I  grasped  it  with  my  soul — I  reached 
it  through  mere  dint  of  intuition.  Alas,  poor  ignorant  old 
man  !  Could  not  any  metaphysician  have  told  him  that  what 
he  called  '  intuition '  was  but  the  conviction  resulting  from 
deductions  or  inductions  of  which  the  processes  were  so 
shadowy  as  to  have  escaped  his  consciousness,  eluded  his 
reason,  or  bidden  defiance  to  his  capacity  of  expression  ? 
How  great  a  pity  it  is  that  some  '  moral  philosopher '  had 
not  enlightened  him  about  all  this !  How  it  would  have 
comforted  him  on  his  death-bed  to  know  that,  instead  of 
having  gone  intuitively  and  thus  unbecomingly,  he  had,  in 
fact,  proceeded  decorously  and  legitimately — that  is  to  say 
Hog-ishly,  or  at  least  Ram-ishly — into  the  vast  halls  where 
lay  gleaming,  untended,  and  hitherto  untouched  by  mortal 
hand — unseen  by  mortal  eye — the  imperishable  and  price 
less  secrets  of  the  Universe  ! 

"  Yes,  Kepler  was  essentially  a  theorist ;  but  this  title, 
now  of  so  much  sanctity,  was,  in  those  ancient  days,  a  de 
signation  of  supreme  contempt.  It  is  only  now  that  men 
begin  to  appreciate  that  divine  old  man — to  sympathize 
with  the  prophetical  and  poetical  rhapsody  of  his  ever- 
memorable  words.  For  my  part,"  continues  the  unknown 
correspondent,  "  I  glow  with  a  sacred  fire  when  I  even 
think  of  them,  and  feel  that  I  shall  never  grow  weary  of 
their  repetition  : — in  concluding  this  letter,  let  me  have  the 


THE     UNIVERSE.  21 

real  pleasure  of  transcribing  them  once  again  : — '  /  care  not 
whether  my  work  be  read  now  or  by  posterity.  I  can  afford 
to  wait  a  century  for  readers  when  God  himself  has  waited 
six  thousand  years  for  an  observer.  I  triumph.  I  have 
stolen  the  golden  secret  of  the  Egyptians.  I  will  indulge 
my  sacred  fury.'  ' 

Here  end  my  quotations  from  this  very  unaccountable 
and,  perhaps,  somewhat  impertinent  epistle  ;  and  perhaps 
it  would  be  folly  to  comment,  in  any  respect,  upon  the 
chimerical,  not  to  say  revolutionary,  fancies  of  the  writer — 
whoever  he  is — fancies  so  radically  at  war  with  the  well- 
considered  and  well-settled  opinions  of  this  age.  Let  us 
proceed,  then,  to  our  legitimate  thesis,  The  Universe. 

This  thesis  admits  a  choice  between  two  modes  of  dis 
cussion  : — We  may  ascend  or  descend.  Beginning  at  our 
own  point  of  view — at  the  Earth  on  which  we  stand — we 
may  pass  to  the  other  planets  of  our  system — thence  to  the 
Sun — thence  to  our  system  considered  collectively — and 
thence,  through  other  systems,  indefinitely  outwards ;  or, 
commencing  on  high  at  some  point  as  definite  as  we  can 
make  it  or  conceive  it,  we  may  come  down  to  the  habita 
tion  of  Man.  Usually — that  is  to  say,  in  ordinary  essays 
on  Astronomy — the  first  of  these  two  modes  is,  with  cer 
tain  reservation,  adopted  : — this  for  the  obvious  reason  that 
astronomic &\  facts,  merely,  and  principles,  being  the  object, 
that  object  is  best  fulfilled  in  stepping  from  the  known 
because  proximate,  gradually  onward  to  the  point  where  all 
certitude  becomes  lost  in  the  remote.  For  my  present  pur 
pose,  however, — that  of  enabling  the  mind  to  take  in,  as  if 
from  afar  and  at  one  glance,  a  distinct  conception  of  the 


EUREKA. 


individual  Universe — it  is  clear  that  a  descent  to  small 
from  great — to  the  outskirts  from  the  centre  (if  we  could 
establish  a  centre) — to  the  end  from  the  beginning  (if  we 
could  fancy  a  beginning)  would  be  the  preferable  course, 
but  for  the  difficulty,  if  not  impossibility,  of  presenting,  in 
this  course,  to  the  unastronomical,  a  picture  at  all  compre 
hensible  in  regard  to  such  considerations  as  are  involved  in 
quantity — that  is  to  say,  in  number,  magnitude  and  dis 
tance. 

Now,  distinctness — intelligibility,  at  all  points,  is  a  pri 
mary  feature  in  my  general  design.  On  important  topics 
it  is  better  to  be  a  good  deal  prolix  than  even  a  very  little 
obscure.  But  abstruseness  is  a  quality  appertaining  to  no 
subject  per  se.  All  are  alike,  in  facility  of  comprehension, 
to  him  who  approaches  them  by  properly  graduated  steps. 
It  is  merely  because  a  stepping-stone,  here  and  there,  is 
heedlessly  left  unsupplied  in  our  road  to  the  Differential 
Calculus,  that  this  latter  is  not  altogether  as  simple  a  thing 
as  a  sonnet  by  Mr.  Solomon  Seesaw. 

By  way  of  admitting,  then,  no  chance  for  misapprehen 
sion,  1  think  it  advisable  to  proceed  as  if  even  the  more 
obvious  facts  of  Astronomy  were  unknown  to  the  reader. 
In  combining  the  two  modes  of  discussion  to  which  I  have 
referred,  I  propose  to  avail  myself  of  the  advantages  pecu 
liar  to  each — and  very  especially  of  the  iteration  in  detail 
which  will  be  unavoidable  as  a  consequence  of  the  plan. 
Commencing  with  a  descent,  I  shall  reserve  for  the  return 
upwards  those  indispensable  considerations  of  quantity  to 
which  allusion  has  already  been  made. 

Let  us  begin,  then,  at  once,  with  that  merest  of  words, 


THE     UNIVERSE.  23 

"Infinity."  This,  like  "God,"  "spirit,"  and  some  other 
expressions  of  which  the  equivalents  exist  in  all  languages, 
is  by  no  means  the  expression  of  an  idea — but  of  an  effort 
at  one.  It  stands  for  the  possible  attempt  at  an  impossible 
conception.  Man  needed  a  term  by  which  to  point  out 
the  direction  of  this  effort — the  cloud  behind  which  lay, 
forever  invisible,  the  object  of  this  attempt.  A  word,  in 
fine,  was  demanded,  by  means  of  which  one  human  being 
might  put  himself  in  relation  at  once  with  another  human 
being  and  with  a  certain  tendency  of  the  human  intellect. 
Out  of  this  demand  arose  the  word,  "  Infinity  ;  "  which  is 
thus  the  representative  but  of  the  thought  of  a  thought. 

As  regards  that  infinity  now  considered — the  infinity  of 
space — we  often  hear  it  said  that  "  its  idea  is  admitted  by 
the  mind — is  acquiesced  in — is  entertained — on  account  of 
the  greater  difficulty  which  attends  the  conception  of  a 
limit."  But  this  is  merely  one  of  those  phrases  by  which 
even  profound  thinkers,  time  out  of  mind,  have  occasion 
ally  taken  pleasure  in  deceiving  themselves.  The  quibble 
lies  concealed  in  the  word  "  difficulty."  "  The  mind,"  we 
are  told,  "  entertains  the  idea  of  limitless,  through  the 
greater  difficulty  which  it  finds  in  entertaining  that  of  lim 
ited,  space."  Now,  were  the  proposition  but  fairly  put,  its 
absurdity  would  become  transparent  at  once.  Clearly, 
there  is  no  mere  difficulty  in  the  case.  The  assertion  in 
tended,  if  presented  according  to  its  intention  and  without 
sophistry,  would  run  thus  : — "  The  mind  admits  the  idea  of 
limitless,  through  the  greater  impossibility  of  entertaining 
that  of  limited,  space." 

It  must  be  immediately  seen  that  this  is  not  a  question 


24  EUREKA. 


of  two  statements  between  whose  respective  credibilities — 
or  of  two  arguments  between  whose  respective  validities — 
the  reason  is  called  upon  to  decide  : — it  is  a  matter  of  two 
conceptions,  directly  conflicting,  and  each  avowedly  im 
possible,  one  of  which  the  intellect  is  supposed  to  be  capa 
ble  of  entertaining,  on  account  of  the  greater  impossibility 
of  entertaining  the  other.  The  choice  is  not  made  between 
two  difficulties  ; — it  is  merely  fancied  to  be  made  between 
two  impossibilities.  Now  of  the  former,  there  are  degrees 
— but  of  the  latter,  none  : — just  as  our  impertinent  letter- 
writer  has  already  suggested.  A  task  may  be  more  or  less 
difficult ;  but  it  is  either  possible  or  not  possible  : — there 
are  no  gradations.  It  might  be  more  difficult  to  overthrow 
the  Andes  than  an  ant-hill ;  but  it  can  be  no  more  impossi 
ble  to  annihilate  the  matter  of  the  one  than  the  matter  of 
the  other.  A  man  may  jump  ten  feet  with  less  difficulty 
than  he  can  jump  twenty,  but  the  impossibility  of  his  leap 
ing  to  the  moon  is  not  a  whit  less  than  that  of  his  leaping 
to  the  dog-star. 

Since  all  this  is  undeniable  :  since  the  choice  of  the 
mind  is  to  be  made  between  impossibilities  of  conception  : 
since  one  impossibility  cannot  be  greater  than  another : 
and  since,  thus,  one  cannot  be  preferred  to  another :  the 
philosophers  who  not  only  maintain,  on  the  grounds  men 
tioned,  man's  idea  of  infinity  but,  on  account  of  such  sup 
posititious  idea,  infinity  itself — are  plainly  engaged  in 
demonstrating  one  impossible  thing  to  be  possible  by  show 
ing  how  it  is  that  some  one  other  thing — is  impossible  too. 
This,  it  will  be  said,  is  nonsense  ;  and  perhaps  it  is  : — in- 


THE     UNI  VERSE.  25 

deed  I  think  it  very  capital  nonsense — but  forego  all  claim 
to  it  as  nonsense  of  mine. 

The  readiest  mode,  however,  of  displaying  the  fallacy 
of  the  philosophical  argument  on  this  question,  is  by  simply 
adverting  to  a  fact  respecting  it  which  has  been  hitherto 
quite  overlooked — the  fact  that  the  argument  alluded  to 
both  proves  and  disproves  its  own  proposition.  "  The  mind 
is  impelled/'  say  the  theologians  and  others,  "  to  admit  a 
First  Cause,  by  the  superior  difficulty  it  experiences  in 
conceiving  cause  beyond  cause  without  end."  The  quib 
ble,  as  before,  lies  in  the  word  "  difficulty  " — but  here  what 
is  it  employed  to  sustain  ?  A  First  Cause.  And  what  is 
a  First  Cause  ?  An  ultimate  termination  of  causes.  And 
what  is  an  ultimate  termination  of  causes  ?  Finity — the 
Finite.  Thus  the  one  quibble,  in  two  processes,  by  God 
knows  how  many  philosophers,  is  made  to  support  now 
Finity  and  now  Infinity — could  it  not  be  brought  to  support 
something  besides  ?  As  for  the  quibblers — they,  at  least, 
are  insupportable.  But — to  dismiss  them  : — what  they 
prove  in  the  one  case  is  the  identical  nothing  which  they 
demonstrate  in  the  other. 

Of  course,  no  one  will  suppose  that  I  here  contend  foi 
the  absolute  impossibility  of  that  which  we  attempt  to  con 
vey  in  the  word  "  Infinity."  My  purpose  is  but  to  show 
the  folly  of  endeavoring  to  prove  Infinity  itself,  or  even  our 
conception  of  it,  by  any  such  blundermg  ratiocination  as 
that  which  is  ordinarily,  employed. 

Nevertheless,  as  an  individual,  I  may  be  permitted  to 
say  that  /  cannot  conceive  Infinity,  and  am  convinced  that 
no  human  being  can.  A  mind  not  thoroughly  self-conscious 

2 


26  EUHEKA. 


— not  accustomed  to  the  introspective  analysis  of  its  own 
operations — will,  it  is  true,  often  deceive  itself  by  supposing 
that  it  has  entertained  the  conception  of  which  we  speak. 
In  the  effort  to  entertain  it,  we  proceed  step  beyond  step — 
we  fancy  point  still  beyond  point ;  and  so  long  as  we  con 
tinue  the  effort,  it  may  be  said,  in  fact,  that  we  are  tending 
to  the  formation  of  the  idea  designed ;  while  the  strength 
of  the  impression  that  we  actually  form  or  have  formed  it, 
is  in  the  ratio  of  the  period  during  which  we  keep  up  the 
mental  endeavor..  But  it  is  in  the  act  of  discontinuing 
the  endeavor — of  fulfilling  (as  we  think)  the  idea — of 
putting  the  finishing  stroke  (as  we  suppose)  to  the  concep 
tion — that  we  overthrow  at  once  the  whole  fabric  of  our 
fancy  by  resting  upon  some  one  ultimate  and  therefore  defi 
nite  point.  This  fact,  however,  we  fail  to  perceive,  on 
account  of  the  absolute  coincidence,  in  time,  between  the 
settling  down  upon  the  ultimate  point  and  the  act  of  cessa 
tion  in  thinking. — In  attempting,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
frame  the  idea  of  a  limited  space,  we  merely  converse  the 
processes  which  involve  the  impossibility. 

We  believe  in  a  God.  We  may  or  may  not  believe  in 
finite  or  in  infinite  space ;  but  our  belief,  in  such  cases,  is 
more  properly  designated  as  faith,  and  is  a  matter  quite 
distinct  from  that  belief  proper — from  that  intellectual  be 
lief — which  presupposes  the  mental  conception. 

The  fact  is,  tha*t,  upon  the  enunciation  of  any  one  of  that 
class  of  terms  to  which  "  Infinity  "  belongs — the  class  re 
presenting  thoughts  of  thought — he  who  has  a  right  to  say 
that  he  thinks  at  all,  feels  himself  called  upon,  not  to  enter 
tain  a  conception,  but  simply  to  direct  his  mental  vision 


THE     UNIVERSE.  27 

toward  some  given  point,  in  the  intellectual  firmament, 
where  lies  a  nebula  never  to  be  resolved.  To  solve  it,  in 
deed,  he  makes  no  effort ;  for  with  a  rapid  instinct  he  com 
prehends,  not  only  the  impossibility,  but,  as  regards  all 
human  purposes,  the  inessentiality,  of  its  solution.  He  per 
ceives  that  the  Deity  has  not  designed  it  to  be  solved.  He 
sees,  at  once,  that  it  lies  out  of  the  brain  of  man,  and  even 
how,  if  not  exactly  why,  it  lies  out  of  it.  There  are  people, 
I  am  aware,  who,  busying  themselves  in  attempts  at  the 
unattainable,  acquire  very  easily,  by  dint  of  the  jargon  they 
emit,  among  those  thinkers-that-they-think  with  whom 
darkness  and  depth  are  synonymous,  a  kind  of  cuttle-fish 
reputation  for  profundity  ;  but  the  finest  quality  of  Thought 
is  its  self-cognizance ;  and,  with  some  little  equivocation, 
it  may  be  said  that  no  fog  of  the  mind  can  well  be  greater 
than  that  which,  extending  to  the  very  boundaries  of  the 
mental  domain,  shuts  out  even  these  boundaries  themselves 
from  comprehension. 

It  will  now  be  understood  that,  in  using  the  phrase, 
"  Infinity  of  Space/'  I  make  no  call  upon  the  reader  to 
entertain  the  impossible  conception  of  an  absolute  infinity. 
I  refer  simply  to  the  "  utmost  conceivable  expanse"  of  space 
— a  shadowy  and  fluctuating  domain,  now  shrinking,  now 
swelling,  in  accordance  with  the  vacillating  energies  of  the 
imagination. 

Hitherto,  the  Universe  of  stars  has  always  been  consi 
dered  as  coincident  with  the  Universe  proper,  as  I  have 
defined  it  in  the  commencement  of  this  Discourse.  It  has 
been  always  either  directly  or  indirectly  assumed — at  least 
since  the  dawn  of  intelligible  Astronomy — that,  were  it 


28  EUREKA. 


possible  for  us  to  attain  any  given  point  in  space,  we  should 
still  find,  on  all  sides  of  us,  an  interminable  succession  of 
stars.  This  was  the  untenable  idea  of  Pascal  when  mak 
ing  perhaps  the  most  successful  attempt  ever  made,  at  peri- 
phrasing  the  conception  for  which  we  struggle  in  the  word 
"  Universe."  "  It  is  a  sphere,"  he  says,  "  of  which  the 
centre  is  everywhere,  the  circumference,  nowhere."  But 
although  this  intended  definition  is,  in  fact,  no  definition  of 
the  Universe  of  stars,  we  may  accept  it,  with  some  mental 
reservation,  as  a  definition  (rigorous  enough  for  all  practical 
purposes)  of  the  Universe  proper — that  is  to  say,  of  the 
Universe  of  space.  This  latter,  then,  let  us  regard  as  "  a 
sphere  of  which  the  centre  is  everywhere,  the  circumference 
nowhere"  In  fact,  while  we  find  it  impossible  to  fancy  an 
end  to  space,  we  have  no  difficulty  in  picturing  to  ourselves 
any  one  of  an  infinity  of  beginnings. 

As  our  starting-point,  then,  let  us  adopt  the  Godhead. 
Of  this  Godhead,  in  itself,  he  alone  is  not  imbecile — he 

alone  is  not  impious  who  propounds nothing.  "  Nous  ne 

connaissons  rien"  says  the  Baron  de  Bielfeld — "  Nous  ne 
connaissons  rien  de  la  nature  ou  de  I  'essence  de  Dieu  : — 
pour  savoir  ce  qu'il  est,  il  faut  etre  Dieu  meme." — "  We 
know  absolutely  nothing  of  the  nature  or  essence  of  God : — 
in  order  to  comprehend  what  he  is,  we  should  have  to  be 
God  ourselves." 

"  We  should  have  to  be  God  ourselves  !" — With  a  phrase 
so  startling  as  this  yet  ringing  in  my  ears,  I  nevertheless  ven 
ture  to  demand  if  this  our  present  ignorance  of  the  Deity  is 
an  ignorance  to  which  the  soul  is  everlastingly  condemned. 

By  Him,  however — now,  at  least,  the  Incomprehensible 


THE     UNIVERSE.  29 

— by  Him — assuming  him  as  Spirit — that  is  to  say,  as  not 
Matter — a  distinction  which,  for  all  intelligible  purposes, 
will  stand  well  instead  of  a  definition — by  -Him,  then,  ex 
isting  as  Spirit,  let  us  content  ourselves,  to-night,  with  sup 
posing  to  have  been  created,  or  made  out  of  Nothing,  by 
dint  of  his  Volition — at  some  point  of  Space  which  we  will 
take  as  a  centre — at  some  period  into  which  we  do  not 
pretend  to  inquire,  but  at  all  events  immensely  remote — 

by  Him,  then  again,  let  us  suppose  to  have  been  created 

what  ?  This  is  a  vitally  momentous  epoch  in  our  consider 
ations.  What  is  it  that  we  are  justified — that  alone  we  are 
justified  in  supposing  to  have  been,  primarily  and  solely, 
created  ? 

We  have  attained  a  point  where  only  Intuition  can  aid 
us  : — but  now  let  me  recur  to  the  idea  which  I  have  already 
suggested  as  that  alone  which  we  can  properly  entertain  of 
intuition.  It  is  but  the  conviction  arising  from  those  induc 
tions  or  deductions  of  which  the  processes  are  so  shadowy 
as  to  escape  our  consciousness,  elude  pur  reason,  or  defy  our 
capacity  of  expression.  With  this  understanding,  I  now 
assert — that  an  intuition  altogether  irresistible,  although 
inexpressible,  forces  me  to  the  conclusion  that  what  God 
originally  created — that  that  Matter  which,  by  dint  of  his 
Volition,  he  first  made  from  his  Spirit,  or  from  Nihility, 
could  have  been  nothing  but  Matter  in  its  utmost  conceiv 
able  state  of what  ? — of  Simplicity  ? 

This  will  be  found  the  sole  absolute  assumption  of  my 
Discourse.  I  use  the  word  "  assumption  "  in  its  ordinary 
sense  ;  yet  I  maintain  that  even  this  my  primary  proposi 
tion,  is  very,  very  far  indeed,  from  being  really  a  mere 


30  E  U  R-E  K  A  . 


assumption.  Nothing  was  ever  more  certainly — no  human 
conclusion  was  ever,  in  fact,  more  regularly — more  rigor 
ously  deduced  : — but,  alas !  the  processes  lie  out  of  the 
human  analysis — at  all  events  are  beyond  the  utterance  of 
the  human  tongue. 

Let  us  now  endeavor  to  conceive  what  Matter  must  be, 
when,  or  if,  in  its  absolute  extreme  of  Simplicity.  Here 
the  Reason  flies  at  once  to  Imparticularity — to  a  particle — 
to  one  particle — a  particle  of  one  kind — of  one  character — 
of  one  nature — of  one  size — of  one  form — a  particle,  there 
fore,  "  without  form  and  void  " — a  particle  positively  a  par 
ticle  at  all  points — a  particle  absolutely  unique,  individual, 
undivided,  and  not  indivisible  only  because  He  who  created 
it,  by  dint  of  his  Will,  can  by  an  infinitely  less  energetic 
exercise  of  the  same  Will,  as  a  matter  of  course,  divide  it. 

Oneness,  then,  is  all  that  I  predicate  of  the  originally 
created  Matter ;  but  I  propose  to  show  that  this  Oneness 
is  a  principle  abundantly  sufficient  to  account  for  the  con 
stitution,  the  existing  phenomena  and  the  plainly  inevitable 
annihilation  of  at  least  the  material  Universe. 

The  willing  into  being  the  primordial  particle,  has  com 
pleted  the  act,  or  more  properly  the  conception,  of  Creation. 
We  now  proceed  to  the  ultimate  purpose  for  which  we  are 
to  suppose  the  Particle  created — that  is  to  say,  the  ultimate 
purpose  so  far  as  our  considerations  yet  enable  us  to  see  it 
— the  constitution  of  the  Universe  from  it,  the  Particle. 

This  constitution  has  been  effected  by  forcing  the  ori 
ginally  and  therefore  normally  One  into  the  abnormal  con 
dition  of  Many.  An  action  of  this  character  implies  reac 
tion.  A  diffusion  from  Unity,  under  the  conditions,  involves 


THE     UNIVERSE.  31 


a  tendency  to  return  into  Unity — a  tendency  ineradicable 
until  satisfied.  But  on  these  points  I  will  speak  more  fully 
hereafter. 

The  assumption  of  absolute  Unity  in  the  primordial 
Particle  includes  that  of  infinite  divisibility.  Let  us  con 
ceive  the  Particle,  then,  to  be  only  not  totally  exhausted  by 
diffusion  into  Space.  From  the  one  Particle,  as  a  centre, 
let  us  suppose  to  be  irradiated  spherically — in  all  directions 
— to  immeasurable  but  still  to  definite  distances  in  the  pre 
viously  vacant  space — a  certain  inexpressibly  great  yet 
limited  number  of  unimaginably  yet  not  infinitely  minute 
atoms. 

Now,  of  these  atoms,  thus  diffused,  or  upon  diffusion, 
what  conditions  are  we  permitted — not  to  assume,  but  to 
infer,  from  consideration  as  well  of  their  source  as  of  the 
character  of  the  design  apparent  in  their  diffusion  ?  Unity 
being  their  source,  and  difference  from  Unity  the  character 
of  the  design  manifested  in  their  diffusion,  we  are  warranted 
in  supposing  this  character  to  be  at  least  generally  pre 
served  throughout  the  design,  and  to  form  a  portion  of  the 
design  itself : — that  is  to  say,  we  shall  be  warranted  in  con 
ceiving  continual  differences  at  all  points  from  the  uniquity 
and  simplicity  of  the  origin.  But,  for  these  reasons,  shall 
we  be  justified  in  imagining  the  atoms  heterogeneous,  dis 
similar,  unequal,  and  inequidistant  ?  More  explicitly — are 
we  to  consider  no  two  atoms  as,  at  their  diffusion,  of  the 
same  nature,  or  of  the  same  form,  or  of  the  same  size  ? — 
and,  after  fulfilment  of  their  diffusion  into  Space,  is  absolute 
inequidistance,  each  from  each,  to  be  understood  of  all  of 
them  ?  In  such  arrangement,  under  such  conditions,  we 


32  EUREKA. 


most  easily  and  immediately  comprehend  the  subsequent 
most  feasible  carrying  out  to  completion  of  any  such  design 
as  that  which  I  have  suggested — the  design  of  variety  out 
of  unity — diversity  out  of  sameness — heterogeneity  out  of 
homogeneity — complexity  out  of  simplicity — in  a  word,  the 
utmost  possible  multiplicity  of  relation  out  of  the  emphatic 
ally  irrelative  One.  Undoubtedly,  therefore,  we  should  be 
warranted  in  assuming  all  that  has  been  mentioned,  but  for 
the  reflection,  first,  that  supererogation  is  not  presumable 
of  any  Divine  Act ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  object  supposed 
in  view,  appears  as  feasible  when  some  of  the  conditions 
in  question  are  dispensed  with,  in  the  beginning,  as  when 
all  are  understood  immediately  to  exist.  I  mean  to  say 
that  some  are  involved  in  the  rest,  or  so  instantaneous  a 
consequence  of  them  as  to  make  the  distinction  inappre 
ciable.  Difference  of  size,  for  example,  will  at  once  be 
brought  about  through  the  tendency  of  one  atom  to  a 
second,  in  preference  to  a  third,  on  account  of  particular 
inequidistance  ;  which  is  to  be  comprehended  as  particular 
inequidistances  between  centres  of  quantity,  in  neighboring 
atoms  of  different  form — a  matter  not  at  all  interfering 
with  the  generally-equable  distribution  of  the  atoms.  Dif 
ference  of  kind,  too,  is  easily  conceived  to  be  merely  a 
result  of  differences  in  size  and  form,  taken  more  or  less 
conjointly : — in  fact,  since  the  Unity  of  the  Particle  Proper 
implies  absolute  homogeneity,  we  cannot  imagine  the  atoms, 
at  their  diffusion,  differing  in  kind,  without  imagining,  at 
the  same  time,  a  special  exercise  of  the  Divine  Will,  at  the 
emission  of  each  atom,  for  the  purpose  of  effecting,  in  each, 
a  change  of  its  essential  nature  : — so  fantastic  an  idea  is 


THE     U'NIVEiRSE.  33 

the  less  to  be  indulged,  as  the  object  proposed  is  seen  to  be 
thoroughly  attainable  withgut  such  minute  and  elaborate 
interposition.  We  perceive,  therefore,  upon  the  whole, 
that  it  would  be  supererogatory,  and  consequently  unphilo- 
sophical,  to  predicate  of  the  atoms,  in  view  of  their  pur 
poses,  any  thing  more  than  difference  of  form  at  their  dis 
persion,  with  particular  inequidistance  after  it — all  other 
differences  arising  at  once  out  of  these,  in  the  very  first 
processes  of  mass-constitution  : — We  thus  establish  the 
Universe  on  a  purely  geometrical  basis.  Of  course,  it  is  by 
no  means  necessary  to  assume  absolute  difference,  even  of 
form,  among  all  the  atoms  irradiated — any  more  than  abso 
lute  particular  inequidistance  of  each  from  each.  We  are 
required  to  conceive  merely  that  no  neighboring  atoms  are 
of  similar  form — no  atoms  which  can  ever  approximate, 
until  their  inevitable  reunition  at  the  end. 

Although  the  immediate  and  perpetual  tendency  of  the 
disunited  atoms  to  return  into  their  normal  Unity,  is  im 
plied,  as  I  have  said,  in  their  abnormal  diffusion  ;  still  it  is 
clear  that  this  tendency  will  be  without  consequence — a 
tendency  and  no  more — until  the  diffusive  energy,  in  ceas 
ing  to  be  exerted,  shall  leave  it,  the  tendency,  free  to  seek 
its  satisfaction.  The  Divine  Act,  however,  being  consid 
ered  as  determinate,  and  discontinued  on  fulfilment  of  the 
diffusion,  we  understand,  at  once,  a  reaction — in  other 
words,  a  satisfiable  tendency  of  the  disunited  atoms  to  re 
turn  into  One. 

But  the  diffusive  energy  being  withdrawn,  and  the  re 
action  having  commenced  in  furtherance  of  the  ultimate 
design — that  of  the  utmost  possible  Relation — this  design  is 


34  EUREKA. 


now  in  danger  of  being  frustrated,  in  detail,  by  reason  of 
that  very  tendency  to  return  \\thich  is  to  effect  its  accom 
plishment  in  general.  Multiplicity  is  the  object ;  but  there 
is  nothing  to  prevent  proximate  atoms,  from  lapsing  at  once, 
through  the  now  satisfiable  tendency — before  the  fulfilment 
of  any  ends  proposed  in  multiplicity — into  absolute  oneness 
among  themselves  : — there  is  nothing  to  impede  the  aggre 
gation  of  various  unique  masses,  at  various  points  of  space  : 
— in  other  words,  nothing  to  interfere  with  the  accumu 
lation  of  various  masses,  each  absolutely  One. 
»  For  the  effectual  and  thorough  completion  of  the  gene 
ral  design,  we  thus  see  the  necessity  for  a  repulsion  of 
limited  capacity — a  separative  something  which,  on  with 
drawal  of  the  diffusive  Volition,  shall  at  the  same  time  allow 
the  approach,  and  forbid  the  junction,  of  the  atoms  ; 
suffering  them  infinitely  to  approximate,  while  denying 
them  positive  contact ;  in  a  word,  having  the  power — up 
to  a  certain  epoch — of  preventing  their  coalition,  but  no 
ability  to  interfere  with  their  coalescence  in  any  respect  or 
degree.  The  repulsion,  already  considered  as  so  peculiarly 
limited  in  other  regards,  must  be  understood,  let  me  repeat, 
as  having  power  to  prevent  absolute  coalition,  only  up  to  a 
certain  epoch.  Unless  we  are  to  conceive  that  the  appetite 
for  Unity  among  the  atoms  is  doomed  to  be  satisfied  never  ; 
— unless  we  are  to  conceive  that  what  had  a  beginning  is 
to  have  no  end — a  conception  which  cannot  really  be 
entertained,  however  much  we  may  talk  or  dream  of  enter 
taining  it — we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  the  repulsive 
influence  imagined,  will,  finally — under  pressure  of  the  Uni- 
tendency  collectively  applied,  but  never  and  in  no  degree 


THE     UNIVERSE.  35 

until,  on  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  purposes,  such  collective 
application  shall  be  naturally  made — yield  to  a  force  which, 
at  that  ultimate  epoch,  shall  be  the  superior  force  precisely 
to  the  extent  required,  and  thus  permit  the  universal  subsi 
dence  into  the  inevitable,  because  original  and  therefore 
normal,  One. — The  conditions  here  to  be  reconciled  are 
difficult  indeed  : — we  cannot  even  comprehend  the  possibi 
lity  of  their  conciliation  ; — nevertheless,  the  apparent  im 
possibility  is  brilliantly  suggestive. 

That  the  repulsive  something  actually  exists,  we  see. 
Man  neither  employs,  nor  knows,  a  force  sufficient  to  bring 
two  atoms  into  contact.  This  is  but  the  well-established 
proposition  of  the  impenetrability  of  matter.  All  Experi 
ment  proves — all  Philosophy  admits  it.  The  design  of  the 
repulsion — the  necessity  for  its  existence — I  have  endea 
vored  to  show ;  but  from  all  attempt  at  investigating  its 
nature  have  religiously  abstained ;  this  on  account  of  an 
intuitive  conviction  that  the  principle  at  issue  is  strictly 
spiritual — lies  in  a  recess  impervious  to  our  present  under 
standing — lies  involved  in  a  consideration  of  what  now — 
in  our  human  state — is  not  to  be  considered — in  a  con 
sideration  of  Spirit  in  itself.  I  feel,  in  a  word,  that  here 
the  God  has  interposed,  and  here  only,  because  here  and 
here  only  the  knot  demanded  the  interposition  of  the  God. 

In  fact,  while  the  tendency  of  the  diffused  atoms  to 
return  into  Unity,  will  be  recognized,  at  once,  as  the  prin 
ciple  of  the  Newtonian  Gravity,  what  I  have  spoken  of  as 
a  repulsive  influence  prescribing  limits  to  the  (immediate) 
satisfaction  of  the  tendency,  will  be  understood  as  that 
which  we  have  been  in  the  practice  of  designating  now  as 


36  EUREKA. 


heat,  now  as  magnetism,  now  as  electricity;  displaying 
our  ignorance  of  its  awful  character  in  the  vacillation 
of  the  phraseology  with  which  we  endeavor  to  circum 
scribe  it. 

Calling  it,  merely  for  the  moment,  electricity,  we  know 
that  all  experimental  analysis  of  electricity  has  given,  as  an 
ultimate  result,  the  principle,  or  seeming  principle,  hetero 
geneity.  Only  where  things  differ  is  electricity  apparent ; 
and  it  is  presumable  that  they  never  differ  where  it  is  not 
developed  at  least,  if  not  apparent.  Now,  this  result  is  in 
the  fullest  keeping  with  that  which  I  have  reached  unem- 
pirically.  The  design  of  the  repulsive  influence  I  have 
maintained  to  be  that  of  preventing  immediate  Unity  among 
the  diffused  atoms  ;  and  these  atoms  are  represented  as 
different  each  from  each.  Difference  is  their  character — 
their  essentiality — just  as  no-difference  was  the  essentiality 
of  their  source.  When  we  say,  then,  that  an  attempt  to 
bring  any  two  of  these  atoms  together  would  induce  an 
effort,  on  the  part  of  the  repulsive  influence,  to  prevent  the 
contact,  we  may  as  well  use  the  strictly  convertible  sen 
tence  that  an  attempt  to  bring  together  any  two  differences 
will  result  in  a  development  of  electricity.  All  existing 
bodies,  of  course,  are  composed  of  these  atoms  in  proximate 
contact,  and  are  therefore  to  be  considered  as  mere  assem 
blages  of  more  or  fewer  differences  ;  and  the  resistance 
made  by  the  repulsive  spirit,  on  bringing  together  any  two 
such  assemblages,  would  be  in  the  ratio  of  the  two  sums  of 
the  differences  in  each  : — an  expression  which,  when  re 
duced,  is  equivalent  to  this  : — The  amount  of  electricity 
developed  on  the  approximation  of  two  bodies,  is  propor- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  37 

tional  to  the  difference  between  the  respective  sums  of  the 
atoms  of  which  the  bodies  are  composed.  That  no  two 
bodies  are  absolutely  alike,  is  a  simple  corollary  from  all 
that  has  been  here  said.  Electricity,  therefore,  existing 
always,  is  developed  whenever  any  bodies,  but  manifested 
only  when  bodies  of  appreciable  difference,  are  brought  into 
approximation. 

To  electricity — so,  for  the  present,  continuing  to  call  it 
— we  may  not  be  wrong  in  referring  the  various  physical 
appearances  of  light,  heat  and  magnetism  ;  but  far  less  shall 
we  be  liable  to  err  in  attributing  to  this  strictly  spiritual 
principle  the  more  important  pheenomena  of  vitality,  con 
sciousness  and  Thought.  On  this  topic,  however,  I  need 
pause  here  merely  to  suggest  that  these  phenomena,  whe 
ther  observed  generally  or  in  detail,  seem  to  proceed  at 
least  in  the  ratio  of  the  heterogeneous. 

Discarding  now  the  two  equivocal  terms,  "  gravitation  " 
and  "electricity,"  let  us  adopt  the  more  definite  expres 
sions,  "  attraction  "  and  "  repulsion."  The  former  is  the 
body ;  the  latter  the  soul :  the  one  is  the  material ;  the 
other  the  spiritual,  principle  of  the  Universe.  No  other 
principles  exist.  All  phenomena  are  referable  to  one,  or 
to  the  other,  or  to  both  combined.  So  rigorously  is  this  the 
case — so  thoroughly  demonstrable  is  it  that  attraction  and 
repulsion  are  the  sole  properties  through  which  we  perceive 
the  Universe — in  other  words,  by  which  Matter  is  mani 
fested  to  Mind — that,  for  all  merely  argumentative  purposes, 
we  are  fully  justified  in  assuming  that  matter  exists  only  as 
attraction  and  repulsion — that  attraction  and  repulsion  are 
matter : — there  being  no  conceivable  case  in  which  we 


38  EUREKA. 


may  not  employ  the  term  "  matter "  and  the  terms  "  at 
traction  "  and  "  repulsion,"  taken  together,  as  equivalent, 
and  therefore  convertible,  expressions  in  Logic. 

I  said,  just  now,  that  what  I  have  described  as  the  ten 
dency  of  the  diffused  atoms  to  return  into  their  original 
unity,  would  be  understood  as  the  principle  of  the  New 
tonian  law  of  gravity  :  and,  in  fact,  there  can  be  little  diffi 
culty  in  such  an  understanding,  if  we  look  at  the  New 
tonian  gravity  in  a  merely  general  view,  as  a  force  impel 
ling  matter  to  seek  matter ;  that  is  to  say,  when  we  pay  no 
attention  to  the  known  modus  operandi  of  the  Newtonian 
force.  The  general  coincidence  satisfies  us  ;  but,  upon  look 
ing  closely,  we  see,  in  detail,  much  that  appears  ^coincident, 
and  much  in  regard  to  which  no  coincidence,  at  least,  is 
established.  For  example  ;  the  Newtonian  gravity,  when 
we  think  of  it  in  certain  moods,  does  not  seem  to  be  a  tend 
ency  to  oneness  at  all,  but  rather  a  tendency  of  all  bodies 
in  all  directions — a  phrase  apparently  expressive  of  a  tend 
ency  to  diffusion.  Here,  then,  is  an  ^coincidence.  Again ; 
when  we  reflect  on  the  mathematical  law  governing  the 
Newtonian  tendency,  we  see  clearly  that  no  coincidence 
has  been  made  good,  in  respect  of  the  modus  operandi,  at 
least,  between  gravitation  as  known  to  exist  and  that  seem 
ingly  simple  and  direct  tendency  which  I  have  assumed. 

In  fact,  I  have  attained  a  point  at  which  it  will  be  ad 
visable  to  strengthen  my  position  by  reversing  my  pro 
cesses.  So  far,  we  have  gone  on  a  priori,  from  an  abstract 
consideration  of  Simplicity,  as  that  quality  most  likely  to 
have  characterized  the  original  action  of  God.  Let  us  now 
see  whether  the  established  facts  of  the  Newtonian  Gravi- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  39 

tation  may  not  afford  us,  a  posteriori,  some  legitimate  in 
ductions. 

What  does  the  Newtonian  law  declare  ? — That  all  bo 
dies  attract  each  other  with  forces  proportional  to  their 
quantities  of  matter  and  inversely  proportional  to  the  squares 
of  their  distances.  Purposely,  I  have  here  given,  in  the 
first  place,  the  vulgar  version  of  the  law ;  and  I  confess 
that  in  this,  as  in  most  other  vulgar  versions  of  great  truths, 
we  find  little  of  a  suggestive  character.  Let  us  now  adopt 
a  more  philosophical  phraseology  '.—Every  atom,  of  every 
body,  attracts  every  other  atom,  both  of  its  own  and  of  every 
other  body,  with  a  force  which  varies  inversely  as  the  squares 
of  the  distances  between  the  attracting  and  attracted  atom. — 
Here,  indeed,  a  flood  of  suggestion  bursts  upon  the  mind. 

But  let  us  see  distinctly  what  it  was  that  Newton 
proved — according  to  the  grossly  irrational  definitions  of 
proof  prescribed  by  the  metaphysical  schools.  He  was 
forced  to  content  himself  with  showing  how  thoroughly  the 
motions  of  an  imaginary  Universe,  composed  of  attracting 
and  attracted  atoms  obedient  to  the  law  he  announced, 
coincide  with  those  of  the  actually  existing  Universe  so  far 
as  it  comes  under  our  observation.  This  was  the  amount 
of  his  demonstration — that  is  to  say,  this  was  the  amount 
of  it,  according  to  the  conventional  cant  of  the  "  philoso 
phies."  His  successes  added  proof  multiplied  by  proof — 
such  proof  as  a  sound  intellect  admits — but  the  demonstra 
tion  of  the  law  itself,  persist  the  metaphysicians,  had  not 
been  strengthened  in  any  degree.  "  Ocular,  physical  proof," 
however,  of  attraction,  here  upon  Earth,  in  accordance 
with  the  Newtonian  theory,  was,  at  length,  much  to  the 


40  EUREKA. 


satisfaction  of  some  intellectual  grovellers,  afforded.  This 
proof  arose  collaterally  and  incidentally  (as  nearly  all  im 
portant  truths  have  arisen)  out  of  an  attempt  to  ascertain 
the  mean  density  of  the  Earth.  In  the  famous  Maskelyne, 
Cavendish  and  Bailly  experiments  for  this  purpose,  the  at 
traction  of  the  mass  of  a  mountain  was  seen,  felt,  mea 
sured,  and  found  to  be  mathematically  consistent  with  the 
immortal  theory  of  the  British  astronomer. 

But  in  spite  of  this  confirmation  of  that  which  needed 
none — in  spite  of  the  so-called  corroboration  of  the  "  theory" 
by  the  so-called  "  ocular  and  physical  proof" — in  spite  of 
the  character  of  this  corroboration — the  ideas  which  even 
really  philosophical  men  cannot  help  imbibing  of  gravity — 
and,  especially,  the  ideas  of  it  which  ordinary  men  get  and 
contentedly  maintain,  are  seen  to  have  been  derived,  for 
the  most  part,  from  a  consideration  of  the  principle  as  they 
find  it  developed — merely  in  the  planet  upon  which  they 
stand. 

Now,  to  what  does  so  partial  a  consideration  tend — to 
what  species  of  error  does  it  give  rise  ?  On  the  Earth  we 
see  and/ee/,  only  that  gravity  impels  all  bodies  towards  the 
centre  of  the  Earth.  No  man  in  the  common  walks  of  life 
could  be  made  to  see  or  to  feel  anything  else — could  be 
made  to  perceive  that  anything,  anywhere,  has  a  perpetual, 
gravitating  tendency  in  any  other  direction  than  to  the 
centre  of  the  Earth ;  yet  (with  an  exception  hereafter  to  be 
specified)  it  is  a  fact  that  every  earthly  thing  (not  to  speak 
now  of  every  heavenly  thing)  has  a  tendency  not  only  to 
the  Earth's  centre  but  in  every  conceivable  direction  be 
sides. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  41 

Now,  although  the  philosophic  cannot  be  said  to  err 
with  the  vulgar  in  this  matter,  they  nevertheless  permit 
themselves  to  be  influenced,  without  knowing  it,  by  the 
sentiment  of  the  vulgar  idea.  "  Although  the  Pagan  fables 
are  not  believed,"  says  Bryant,  in  his  very  erudite  "  My 
thology,"  "  yet  we  forget  ourselves  continually  and  make 
inferences  from  them  as  from  existing  realities."  I  mean 
to  assert  that  the  merely  sensitive  perception  of  gravity  as 
we  experience  it  on  Earth,  beguiles  mankind  into  the  fancy 
of  concentralization  or  especially  respecting  it — has  been 
continually  biasing  towards  this  fancy  even  the  mightiest 
intellects — perpetually,  although  imperceptibly,  leading  them 
away  from  the  real  characteristics  of  the  principle ;  thus 
preventing  them,  up  to  this  date,  from  ever  getting  a  glimpse 
of  that  vital  truth  which  lies  in  a  diametrically  opposite 
direction — behind  the  principle's  essential  characteristics — 
those,  not  of  concentralization  or  especiality — but  of  uni 
versality  and  diffusion.  This  "  vital  truth "  is  Unity  as 
the  source  of  the  phenomenon. 

Let  me  now  repeat  the  definition  of  gravity  : — Every 
atom,  of  every  body,  attracts  every  other  atom,  both  of  its 
own  and  of  every  other  body,  with  a  force  which  varies 
inversely  as  the  squares  of  the  distances  of  the  attracting 
and  attracted  atom. 

Here  let  the  reader  pause  with  me,  for  a  moment,  in 
contemplation  of  the  miraculous — of  the  ineffable — of  the 
altogether  unimaginable  complexity  of  relation  involved  in 
the  fact  that  each  atom  attracts  every  other  atom — involved 
merely  in  this  fact  of  the  attraction,  without  reference  to 
the  law  or  mode  in  which  the  attraction  is  manifested — 


42  EUREKA. 


involved  merely  in  the  fact  that  each  atom  attracts  every 
other  atom  at  all,  in  a  wilderness  of  atoms  so  numerous 
that  those  which  go  to  the  composition  of  a  cannon-ball, 
exceed,  probably,  in  mere  point  of  number,  all  the  stars 
which  go  to  the  constitution  of  the  Universe. 

Had  we  discovered,  simply,  that  each  atom  tended  to 
some  one  favorite  point — to  some  especially  attractive  atom 
— we  should  still  have  fallen  upon  a  discovery  which,  in 
itself,  would  have  sufficed  to  overwhelm  the  mind  : — but 
what  is  it  that  we  are  actually  called  upon  to  comprehend  ? 
That  each  atom  attracts — sympathizes  with  the  most  deli 
cate  movements  of  every  other  atom,  and  with  each  and 
with  all  at  the  same  time,  and  forever,  and  according  to  a 
determinate  law  of  which  the  complexity,  even  considered 
by  itself  solely,  is  utterly  beyond  the  grasp  of  the  imagina 
tion  of  man.  If  1  propose  to  ascertain  the  influence  of  one 
mote  in  a  sunbeam  upon  its  neighboring  mote,  I  cannot 
accomplish  my  purpose  without  first  counting  and  weigh 
ing  all  the  atoms  in  the  Universe  and  defining  the  precise 
positions  of  all  at  one  particular  moment  If  I  venture  to 
displace,  by  even  the  billionth  part  of  an  inch,  the  micro 
scopical  speck  of  dust  which  lies  now  upon  the  point  of  my 
finger,  what  is  the  character  of  that  act  upon  which  I  have 
adventured  ?  I  have  done  a  deed  which  shakes  the  Moon 
in  her  path,  which  causes  the  Sun  to  be  no  longer  the  Sun, 
and  which  alters  forever  the  destiny  of  the  multitudinous 
myriads  of  stars  that  roll  and  glow  in  the  majestic  presence 
of  their  Creator. 

These  ideas — conceptions  such  as  these — unthoughtlike 
thoughts — soul-reveries  rather  than  conclusions  or  even 


THE    -UNIVERSE.  43 

considerations  of  the  intellect : — ideas,  I  repeat,  such  as 
these,  are  such  as  we  can  alone  hope  profitably  to  enter 
tain  in  any  effort  at  grasping  the  great  principle,  Attraction. 

But  now, — with  such  ideas — with  such  a  vision  of  the 
marvellous  complexity  of  Attraction  fairly  in  his  mind — let 
any  person  competent  of  thought  on  such  topics  as  these, 
set  himself  to  the  task  of  imagining  a  principle  for  the  phae- 
nomena  observed — a  condition  from  which  they  sprang. 

Does  not  so  evident  a  brotherhood  among  the  atoms 
point  to  a  common  parentage  ?  Does  not  a  sympathy  so 
omniprevalent,  so  ineradicable,  and  so  thoroughly  irrespec 
tive,  suggest  a  common  paternity  as  its  source  ?  Does  not 
one  extreme  impel  the  reason  to  the  other  ?  Does  not  the 
infinitude  of  division  refer  to  the  utterness  of  individuality  ? 
Does  not  the  entireness  of  the  complex  hint  at  the  perfec 
tion  of  the  simple  ?  It  is  not  that  the  atoms,  as  we  see 
them,  are  divided  or  that  they  are  complex  in  their  rela 
tions — but  that  they  are  inconceivably  divided  and  unutter 
ably  complex  : — it  is  the  extremeness  of  the  conditions  to 
which  1  now  allude,  rather  than  to  the  conditions  them 
selves.  In  a  word,  is  it  not  because  the  atoms  were,  at 
some  remote  epoch  of  time,  even  more  than  together — is  it 
not  because  originally,  and  therefore  normally,  they  were 
One — that  now,  in  all  circumstances — at  all  points — in  all 
directions — by  all  modes  of  approach — in  all  relations  and 
through  all  conditions — they  struggle  back  to  this  absolute 
ly,  this  irrelatively,  this  unconditionally  one  ? 

Some  person  may  here  demand  : — "  Why — since  it  is  to 
the  One  that  the  atoms  struggle  back — do  we  not  find  and 
define  Attraction  *  a  merely  general  tendency  to  a  centre  ?' 


44  EUREKA. 


— why,  in  especial,  do  not  your  atoms — the  atoms  which 
you  describe  as  having  been  irradiated  from  a  centre — 
proceed  at  once,  rectilinearly,  back  to  the  central  point  of 
their  origin  ?" 

I  reply  that  they  do  ;  as  will  be  distinctly  shown ;  but 
that  the  cause  of  their  so  doing  is  quite  irrespective  of  the 
centre  as  such.  They  all  tend  rectilinearly  towards  a  cen 
tre,  because  of  the  sphereicity  with  which  they  have  been 
irradiated  into  space.  Each  atom,  forming  one  of  a  gener 
ally  uniform  globe  of  atoms,  finds  more  atoms  in  the  direc 
tion  of  the  centre,  of  course,  than  in  any  other,  and  in  that 
direction,  therefore,  is  impelled — but  is  not  thus  impelled 
because  the  centre  is  the  point  of  its  origin.  It  is  not  to 
any  point  that  the  atoms  are  allied.  It  is  not  any  locality, 
either  in  the  concrete  or  in  the  abstract,  to  which  I  suppose 
them  bound.  Nothing  like  location  was  conceived  as  their 
origin.  Their  source  lies  in  the  principle,  Unity.  This  is 
their  lost  parent.  This  they  seek  always — immediately — 
in  all  directions — wherever  it  is  even  partially  to  be  found ; 
thus  appeasing,  in  some  measure,  the  ineradicable  tendency, 
while  on  the  way  to  its  absolute  satisfaction  in  the  end. 
It  follows  from  all  this,  that  any  principle  which  shall  be 
adequate  to  account  for  the  law,  or  modus  operandi,  of  the 
attractive  force  in  general,  will  account  for  this  law  in 
particular  : — that  is  to  say,  any  principle  which  will  show 
why  the  atoms  should  tend  to  their  general  cSntre  of  irra 
diation  with  forces  inversely  proportional  to  the  squares  of 
the  distances,  will  be  admitted  as  satisfactorily  accounting, 
at  the  same  time,  for  the  tendency,  according  to  the  same 
law,  of  these  atoms  each  to  each  :—for  the  tendency  to  the 


THE     UNIVERSE.  45 

centre  is  merely  the  tendency  each  to  each,  and  not  any 
tendency  to  a  centre  as  such. — Thus  it  will  be  seen,  also, 
that  the  establishment  of  my  propositions  would  involve  no 
necessity  of  modification  in  the  terms  of  the  Newtonian 
definition  of  Gravity,  which  declares  that  each  atom  attracts 
each  other  atom  and  so  forth,  and  declares  this  merely ; 
but  (always  under  the  supposition  that  what  I  propose  be, 
in  the  end,  admitted)  it  seems  clear  that  some  error  might 
occasionally  be  avoided,  in  the  future  processes  of  Science, 
were  a  more  ample  phraseology  adopted  : — for  instance  : — 
"  Each  atom  tends  to  every  other  atom  &c.  with  a  force 
&c. :  the  general  result  being  a  tendency  of  all,  with  a  simi 
lar  force,  to  a  general  centre" 

The  reversal  of  our  processes  has  thus  brought  us  to  an 
identical  result ;  but,  while  in  the  one  process  intuition 
was  the  starting-point,  in  the  other  it  was  the  goal.  In 
commencing  the  former  journey  I  could  only  say  that,  with 
an  irresistible  intuition,  I  felt  Simplicity  to  have  been  the 
characteristic  of  the  original  action  of  God  : — in  ending  the 
latter  I  can  only  declare  that,  with  an  irresistible  intuition, 
I  perceive  Unity  to  have  been  the  source" of  the  observed 
phenomena  of  the  Newtonian  gravitation.  Thus,  accord 
ing  to  the  schools,  I  prove  nothing.  So  be  it : — I  design 
but  to  suggest — and  to  convince  through  the  suggestion, 
lam  proudly  aware  that  there  exist  many  of  the  most  pro 
found  and  cautiously  discriminative  human  intellects  which 
cannot  help  being  abundantly  content  with  my — sugges 
tions.  To  these  intellects — as  to  my  own — there  is  no 
mathematical  demonstration  which  could  bring  the  least 
additional  true  proof  of  the  great  Truth  which  I  have  ad- 


46  E  U  R,  E  K  A  . 


vanced — the  truth  of  Original  Unity  as  the  source — as  the 
principle  of  the  Universal  Phenomena.  For  my  part,  I 
am  not  so  sure  that  I  speak  and  see — I  am  not  so  sure  that 
my  heart  beats  and  that  my  soul  lives : — of  the  rising  ©f 
to-morrow's  sun — a  probability  that  as  yet  lies  in  the  Fu 
ture — I  do  not  pretend  to  be  one  thousandth  part  as  sure — 
as  I  am  of  the  irretrievably  by-gone  Fact  that  All  Things 
and  All  Thoughts  of  Things,  with  all  their  ineffable  Multi 
plicity  of  Relation,  sprang  at  once  into  being  from  the 
primordial  and  irrelative  One. 

Referring  to  the  Newtonian  Gravity,  Dr.  Nichol,  the 
eloquent  author  of  "  The  Architecture  of  the  Heavens," 
says  : — "  In  truth  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  this  great 
Law,  as  now  revealed,  to  be  the  ultimate  or  simplest,  and 
therefore  the  universal  and  all-comprehensive,  form  of  a 
great  Ordinance.  The  mode  in  which  its  intensity  dimi 
nishes  with  the  element  of  distance,  has  not  the  aspect  of 
an  ultimate  principle  ;  which  always  assumes  the  simpli 
city  and  self-evidence  of  those  axioms  which  constitute  the 
basis  of  Geometry." 

Now,  it  is  quite  true  that  "  ultimate  principles,"  in  the 
common  understanding  of  the  words,  always  assume  the 
simplicity  of  geometrical  axioms — (as  for  "  self-evidence," 
there  is  no  such  thing) — but  these  principles  are  clearly  not 
"  ultimate ;"  in  other  terms  what  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
calling  principles  are  no  principles,  properly  speaking — 
since  there  can  be  but  one  principle,  the  Volition  of  God. 
We  have  no  right  to  assume,  then,  from  what  we  observe 
in  rules  that  we  choose  foolishly  to  name  "principles," 
anything  at  all  in  respect  to  the  characteristics  of  a  princi- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  47 

pie  proper.  The  "ultimate  principles  "  of  which  Dr.  Nichol 
speaks  as  having  geometrical  simplicity,  may  and  do  have 
this  geometrical  turn,  as  being  part  and  parcel  of  a  vast 
geometrical  system,  and  thus  a  system  of  simplicity  itself — 
in  which,  nevertheless,  the  truly  ultimate  principle  is,  as 
we  know,  the  consummation  of  the  complex — that  is  to  say, 
of  the  unintelligible — for  is  it  not  the  Spiritual  Capacity  of 
God? 

I  quoted  Dr.  Nichol's  remark,  however,  not  so  much  to 
question  its  philosophy,  as  by  way  of  calling  attention  to 
the  fact  that,  while  all  men  have  admitted  some  principle 
as  existing  behind  the  Law  of  Gravity,  no  attempt  has  been 
yet  made  to  point  out  what  this  principle  in  particular  is : — 
if  we  except,  perhaps,  occasional  fantastic  efforts  at  refer 
ring  it  to  Magnetism,  or  Mesmerism,  or  Swedenborgianism, 
or  Transcendentalism,  or  some  other  equally  delicious  ism 
of  the  same  species,  and  invariably  patronized  by  one  and 
the  same  species  of  people.  The  great  mind  of  Newton, 
while  boldly  grasping  the  Law  itself,  shrank  from  the  prin 
ciple  of  the  Law.  The  more  fluent  and  comprehensive  at 
least,  if  not  the  more  patient  and  profound,  sagacity  of 
Laplace,  had  not  the  courage  to  attack  it.  But  hesitation 
on  the  part  of  these  two  astronomers  it  is,  perhaps,  not  so 
very  difficult  to  understand.  They,  as  well  as  all  the  first 
class  of  mathematicians,  were  mathematicians  solely : — 
their  intellect,  at  least,  had  a  firmly-pronounced  mathema- 
tico-physical  tone.  What  lay  not  distinctly  within  the 
domain  of  Physics,  or  of  Mathematics,  seemed  to  them  either 
Non-Entity  or  Shadow.  Nevertheless,  we  may  well  won 
der  that  Leibnitz,  who  was  a  marked  exception  to  the 


48  EUREKA. 


general  rule  in  these  respects,  and  whose  mental  temper 
ament  was  a  singular  admixture  of  the  mathematical  with 
the  physico-metaphysical,  did  not  at  once  investigate  and 
establish  the  point  at  issue.  Either  Newton  or  Laplace, 
seeking  a  principle  and  discovering  none  physical,  would 
have  rested  contentedly  in  the  conclusion  that  there  was 
absolutely  none  ;  but  it  is  almost  impossible  to  fancy,  of 
Leibnitz,  that,  having  exhausted  in  his  search  the  physical 
dominions,  he  would  not  have  stepped  at  once,  boldly  and 
hopefully,  amid  his  old  familiar  haunts  in  the  kingdom  of 
Metaphysics.  Here,  indeed,  it  is  clear  that  he  must  have 
adventured  in  search  of  the  treasure  : — that  he  did  not  find 
it  after  all,  was,  perhaps,  because  his  fairy  guide,  Imagina 
tion,  was  not  sufficiently  well-grown,  or  well-educated,  to 
direct  him  aright. 

I  observed,  just  now,  that,  in  fact,  there  had  been  cer 
tain  vague  attempts  at  referring  Gravity  to  some  very  un 
certain  isms.  These  attempts,  however,  although  consi 
dered  bold  and  justly  so  considered,  looked  no  farther  than 
to  the  generality — the  merest  generality — of  the  Newtonian 
Law.  Its  modws  operandi  has  never,  to  my  knowledge, 
been  approached  in  the  way  of  an  effort  at  explanation. 
It  is,  therefore,  with  no  unwarranted  fear  of  being  taken 
for  a  madman  at  the  outset,  and  before  I  can  bring  my 
propositions  fairly  to  the  eye  of  those  who  alone  are  com 
petent  to  decide  upon  them,  that  I  here  declare  the  modus 
operandi  of  the  Law  of  Gravity  to  be  an  exceedingly  sim 
ple  an'd  perfectly  explicable  thing — that  is  to  say,  when  we 
make  our  advances  towards  it  in  just  gradations  and  in  the 
true  direction — when  we  regard  it  from  the  proper  point 
of  view. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  49 

Whether  we  reach  the  idea  of  absolute  Unity  as  the 
source  of  All  Things,  from  a  consideration  of  Simplicity  as 
the  most  probable  characteristic  of  the  original  action  of 
God  ; — whether  we  arrive  at  it  from  an  inspection  of  the 
universality  of  relation  in  the  gravitating  phenomena  ; — or 
whether  we  attain  it  as  a  result  of  the  mutual  corrobora- 
tion  afforded  by  both  processes ; — still,  the  idea  itself,  if 
entertained  at  all,  is  entertained  in  inseparable  connection 
with  another  idea — that  of  the  condition  of  the  Universe 
of  stars  as  we  now  perceive  it — that  is  to  say,  a  condition 
of  immeasurable  diffusion  through  space.  Now  a  connec 
tion  between  these  two  ideas — unity  and  diffusion — cannot 
be  established  unless  through  the  entertainment  of  a  third 
idea — that  of  irradiation.  Absolute  Unity  being  taken  as 
a  centre,  then  the  existing  Universe  of  stars  is  the  result  of 
irradiation  from  that  centre. 

Now,  the  laws  of  irradiation  are  known.  They  are 
part  and  parcel  of  the  sphere.  They  belong  to  the  class  of 
indisputable  geometrical  properties.  We  say  of  them, 
"  they  are  true — they  are  evident."  To  demand  why  they 
are  true,  would  be  to  demand  why  the  axioms  are  true 
upon  which  their  demonstration  is  based.  Nothing  is  de 
monstrable,  strictly  speaking  ;  but  if  anything  be,  then  the 
properties — the  laws  in  question  are  demonstrated. 

But  these  laws — what  do  they  declare  ?  Irradiation — 
how — by  what  steps  does  it  proceed  outwardly  from  a 
centre  ? 

From  a  luminous  centre,  Light  issues  by  irradiation ; 
and  the  quantities  of  light  received  upon  any  given  plane, 
supposed  to  be  shifting  its  position  so  as  to  be  now  nearer 

3 


50 


EUREKA. 


the  centre  and  now  farther  from  it,  will  be  diminished  in 
the  same  proportion  as  the  squares  of  the  distances  of  the 
plane  from  the  luminous  body,  are  increased  ;  and  will  be 
increased  in  the  same  proportion  as  these  squares  are 
diminished. 

The  expression  of  the  law  may  be  thus  generalized : — 
the  number  of  light-particles  (or,  if  the  phrase  be  preferred, 
the  number  of  light-impressions)  received  upon  the  shifting 
plane,  will  be  inversely  proportional  with  the  squares  of  the 
distances  of  the  plane.  Generalizing  yet  again,  we  may 
say  that  the  diffusion — the  scattering — the  irradiation,  in  a 
worc[ — is  directly  proportional  with  the  squares  of  the  dis 
tances. 

For  example  :  at  the  distance  B,  from  the  luminous 
centre  A,  a  certain  number  of  particles  are  so  diffused  as  to 
occupy  the  surface  B.  Then  at  double  the  distance — that 
is  to  say 


at  C — they  will  be  so  much  farther  diffused  as  to  occupy 
four  such  surfaces  : — at  treble  the  distance,  or  at  D,  they 
will  be  so  much  farther  separated  as  to  occupy  nine  such 
surfaces  : — while,  at  quadruple  the  distance,  or  at  E,  they 


THE     UNIVERSE.  51 

/ 

will  have  become  so  scattered  as  to  spread  themselves  over 
sixteen  such  surfaces — and  so  on  forever. 

In  saying,  generally,  that  the  irradiation  proceeds  in 
direct  proportion  with  the  squares  of  the  distances,  we  use 
the  term  irradiation  to  express  the  degree  of  the  diffusion 
as  we  proceed  outwardly  from  the  centre.  Conversing  the 
idea,  and  employing  the  word  "  concentralization  "  to  ex 
press  the  degree  of  the  drawing  together  as  we  come  back 
toward  the  centre  from  an  outward  position,  we  may  say 
that  concentralization  proceeds  inversely  as  the  squares  of 
the  distances.  In  other  words,  we  have  reached  the  con 
clusion  that,  on  the  hypothesis  that  matter  was  originally 
irradiated  from  a  centre  and  is  now  returning  to  it,  the 
concentralization,  in  the  return,  proceeds  exactly  as  we 
know  the  force  of  gravitation  to  proceed. 

Now  here,  if  we  could  be  permitted  to  assume  that  con- 
centralization  exactly  represented  the  force  of  the  tendency 
to  the  centre — that  the  one  was  exactly  proportional  to  the 
other,  and  that  the  two  proceeded  together — we  should 
have  shown  all  that  is  required.  The  sole  difficulty  exist 
ing,  then,  is  to  establish  a  direct  proportion  between  "  con- 
centralization  "  and  the  force  of  concentralization  ;  and 
this  is  done,  of  course,  if  we  establish  such  proportion  be 
tween  "irradiation"  and  the  force  of  irradiation. 

A  very  slight  inspection  of  the  Heavens  assures  us  that 
the  stars  have  a  certain  general  uniformity,  equability,  or 
equidistance,  of  distribution  through  that  region  of  space  in 
which,  collectively,  and  in  a  roughly  globular  form,  they 
are  situated  : — this  species  of  very  general,  rather  than  ab 
solute,  equability,  being  in  full  keeping  with  my  deduction 


52  E  U  II  E  K  A . 


of  inequidistance,  within  certain  limits,  among  the  origin 
ally  diffused  atoms,  as  a  corollary  from  the  evident  design 
of  infinite  complexity  of  relation  out  of  irrelation.  I  started, 
it  will  be  remembered,  with  the  idea  of  a  generally  uniform 
but  particularly  unumform  distribution  of  the  atoms  ; — an 
idea,  I  repeat,  which  an  inspection  of  the  stars,  as  they 
exist,  confirms. 

But  even  in  the  merely  general  equability  of  distribu 
tion,  as  regards  the  atoms,  there  appears  a  difficulty  which, 
no  doubt,  has  already  suggested  itself  to  those  among  my 
readers  who  have  borne  in  mind  that  I  suppose  this  equabi 
lity  of  distribution  effected  through  irradiation  from  a  cen 
tre.  The  very  first  glance  at  the  idea,  irradiation,  forces 
us  to  the  entertainment  of  the  hitherto  unseparated  and 
seemingly  inseparable  idea  of  agglomeration  about  a  centre, 
with  dispersion  as  we  recede  from  it — the  idea,  in  a  word, 
of  inequability  of  distribution  in  respect  to  the  matter  irra 
diated. 

Now,  I  have  elsewhere*  observed  that  it  is  by  just  such 
difficulties  as  the  one  now  in  question — such  roughnesses — 
such  peculiarities — such  protuberances  above  the  plane  of 
the  ordinary — that  Reason  feels  her  way,  if  at  all,  in  her 
search  for  the  True.  By  the  difficulty — the  "  peculiarity  " 
— now  presented,  I  leap  at  once  to  the  secret — a  secret 
which  I  might  never  have  attained  but  for  the  peculiarity 
and  the  inferences  which,  in  its  mere  character  of  pecu 
liarity,  it  affords  me. 

The  process  of  thought,  at  this  point,  may  be  thus 
roughly  sketched  : — I  say  to  myself — "  Unity,  as  I  have 

*  "  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue"— p.  133. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  53 

explained  it,  is  a  truth — I  feel  it.  Diffusion  is  a  truth — I 
see  it.  Irradiation,  by  which  alone  these  two  truths  are 
reconciled,  is  a  consequent  truth — I  perceive  it.  Equability 
of  diffusion,  first  deduced  a  priori  and  then  ,  corroborated 
by  the  inspection  of  phenomena,  is  also  a  truth — I  fully 
admit  it.  So  far  all  is  clear  around  me  : — there  are  no 
clouds  behind  which  the  secret — the  great  secret  of  the 
gravitating  modus  operandi — can  possibly  lie  hidden  ; — but 
this  secret  lies  hereabouts,  most  assuredly ;  and  were  there 
but  a  cloud  in  view,  I  should  be  driven  to  suspicion  of  that 
cloud."  And  now,  just  as  I  say  this,  there  actually  comes 
a  cloud  into  view.  This  cloud  is  the  seeming  impossibility 
of  reconciling  my  truth,  irradiation,  with  my  truth,  equa 
bility  of  diffusion.  1  say  now  : — "  Behind  this  seeming 
impossibility  is  to  be  found  what  I  desire."  I  do  not  say 
"  real  impossibility ;"  for  invincible  faith  in  my  truths  as 
sures  me  that  it  is  a  mere  difficulty  after  all — but  I  go  on 
to  say,  with  unflinching  confidence,  that,  when  this  difficulty 
shall  be  solved,  we  shall  find,  wrapped  up  in  the  process  of 
solution,  the  key  to  the  secret  at  which  we  aim.  More 
over — I  feel  that  we  shall  discover  but  one  possible  solution 
of  the  difficulty  ;  this  for  the  reason  that,  were  there  two, 
one  would  be  supererogatory — would  be  fruitless — would  be 
empty — would  contain  no  key — since  no  duplicate  key  can 
be  needed  to  any  secret  of  Nature. 

And  now,  let  us  see  : — Our  usual  notions  of  irradiation 
— in  fact  all  our  distinct  notions  of  it — are  caught  merely 
from  the  process  as  we  see  it  exemplified  in  Light.  Here 
there  is  a  continuous  outpouring  of  ray-streams,  and  with  a 
force  which  we  have  at  least  no  right  to  suppose  varies  at 


54  E  IT  H  E  K  A  . 


all.  Now,  in  any  such  irradiation  as  this — continuous  and 
of  unvarying  force — the  regions  nearer  the  centre  must 
inevitably  be  always  more  crowded  with  the  irradiated 
matter  than  the  regions  more  remote.  But  I  have  assumed 
no  such  irradiation  as  this.  I  assumed  no  continuous  irra 
diation  ;  and  for  the  simple  reason  that  such  an  assumption 
would  have  involved,  first,  the  necessity  of  entertaining  a 
conception  which  I  have  shown  no  man  can  entertain,  and 
which  (as  I  will  more  fully  explain  hereafter)  all  observa 
tion  of  the  firmament  refutes — the  conception  of  the  abso 
lute  infinity  of  the  Universe  of  stars — and  would  have 
involved,  secondly,  the  impossibility  of  understanding  a 
reaction — that  is,  gravitation — as  existing  now — since, 
while  an  act  is  continued,  no  reaction,  of  course,  can  take 
place.  My  assumption,  then,  or  rather  my  inevitable  de 
duction  from  just  premises— was  that  of  a  determinate  irra 
diation — one  finally  ^continued. 

Let  me  now  describe  the  sole  possible  mode  in  which  it 
is  conceivable  that  matter  could  have  been  diffused  through 
space,  so  as  to  fulfil  the  conditions  at  once  of  irradiation 
and  of  generally  equable  distribution. 

For  convenience  of  illustration,  let  us  imagine,  in  the 
first  place,  a  hollow  sphere  of  glass,  or  of  anything  else, 
occupying  the  space  throughout  which  the  universal  matter 
is  to  be  thus  equally  diffused,  by  means  of  irradiation,  from 
the  absolute,  irrelative,  unconditional  particle,  placed  in  the 
centre  of  the  sphere. 

Now,  a  certain  exertion  of  the  diffusive  power  (pre 
sumed  to  be  the  Divine  Volition) — in  other  words,  a  cer- 
tain/orce — whose  measure  is  the  quantity  of  matter — that 


THEUNIVEHSE.  55 

is  to  say,  the  number  of  atoms — emitted  ;  emits,  by  irradia 
tion,  this  certain  number  of  atoms  ;  forcing  them  in  all 
directions  outwardly  from  the  centre — their  proximity  to 
each  other  diminishing  as  they  proceed — until,  finally,  they 
are  distributed,  loosely,  over  the  interior  surface  of  the 
sphere. 

When  these  atoms  have  attained  this  position,  or  while 
proceeding  to  attain  it,  a  second  and  inferior  exercise  of  the 
same  force — or  a  second  and  inferior  force  of  the  same 
character — emits,  in  the  same  manner — that  is  to  say,  by 
irradiation  as  before — a  second  stratum  of  atoms  which 
proceeds  to  deposit  itself  upon  the  first ;  the  number  of 
atoms,  in  this  case  as  in  the  former,  being  of  course  the 
measure  of  the  force  which  emitted  them  ;  in  other  words 
the  force  being  precisely  adapted  to  the  purpose  it  effects — 
the  force  and  the  number  of  atoms  sent  out  by  the  force, 
being  directly  proportional. 

When  this  second  stratum  has  reached  its  destined  posi 
tion — or  while  approaching  it — a  third  still  inferior  exertion 
of  the  force,  or  a  third  inferior  force  of  a  similar  character 
— the  number  of  atoms  emitted  being  in  all  cases  the  mea 
sure  of  the  force — proceeds  to  deposit  a  third  stratum  upon 
the  second : — and  so  on,  until  these  concentric  strata,  grow 
ing  gradually  less  and  less,  come  down  at  length  to  the 
central  point ;  and  the  diffusive  matter,  simultaneously  with 
the  diffusive  force,  is  exhausted. 

We  have  now  the  sphere  filled,  through  means  of  irra 
diation,  with  atoms  equably  diffused.  The  two  necessary 
conditions — those  of  irradiation  and  of  equable  diffusion — • 
are  satisfied  ;  and  by  the  sole  process  in  which  the  possibi- 


56  E  U  B,  E  K  A . 


lity  of  their  simultaneous  satisfaction  is  conceivable.  For 
this  reason,  I  confidently  expect  to  find,  lurking  in  the  pre 
sent  condition  of  the  atoms  as  distributed  throughout  the 
sphere,  the  secret  of  which  I  am  in  search — the  all-import 
ant  principle  of  the  modus  operandi  of  the  Newtonian  law. 
Let  us  examine,  then,  the  actual  condition  of  the  atoms. 

They  lie  in  a  series  of  concentric  strata.  They  are 
equably  diffused  throughout  the  sphere.  They  have  been 
irradiated  into  these  states. 

The  atoms  being  equably  distributed,  the  greater  the 
superficial  extent  of  any  of  these  concentric  strata,  or 
spheres,  the  more  atoms  will  lie  upon  it.  In  other  words, 
the  number  of  atoms  lying  upon  the  surface  of  any  one  of 
the  concentric  spheres,  is  directly  proportional  with  the  ex 
tent  of  that  surface. 

But,  in  any  series  of  concentric  spheres,  the  surfaces 
are  directly  proportional  with  the  squares  of  the  distances 
from  the  centre* 

Therefore  the  number  of  atoms  in  any  stratum  is  direct 
ly  proportional  with  the  square  of  that  stratum's  distance 
from  the  centre. 

But  the  number  of  atoms  in  any  stratum  is  the  measure 
of  the  force  which  emitted  that  stratum — that  is  to  say,  is 
directly  proportional  with  the  force. 

Therefore  the  force  which  irradiated  any  stratum  is 
directly  proportional  with  the  square  of  that  stratum's  dis 
tance  from  the  centre  : — or,  generally, 

The  force  of  the  irradiation  has  been  directly  propor 
tional  with  the  squares  of  the  distances. 

*  Succinctly — The  surfaces  of  spheres  are  as  the  squares  of  their  radii. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  57 

Now,  Reaction,  as  far  as  we  know  anything  of  it,  is 
Action  conversed.  The  general  principle  of  Gravity  being, 
in  the  first  place,  understood  as  the  reaction  of  an  act — as 
the  expression  of  a  desire  on  the  part  of  Matter,  while  ex 
isting  in  a  state  of  diffusion,  to  return  into  the  Unity  whence 
it  was  diffused ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  mind  being 
called  upon  to  determine  the  character  of  the  desire — the 
manner  in  which  it  would,  naturally,  be  manifested  ;  in 
other  words,  being  called  upon  to  conceive  a  probable  law, 
or  modus  operandi,  for  the  return  ;  could  not  well  help 
arriving  at  the  conclusion  that  this  law  of  return  would  be 
precisely  the  converse  of  the  law  of  departure.  That  such 
would  be  the  case,  any  one,  at  least,  would  be  abundantly 
justified  in  taking  for  granted,  until  such  time  as  some  per 
son  should  suggest  something  like  a  plausible  reason  why  it 
should  not  be  the  case — until  such  period  as  a  law  of  return 
shall  be  imagined  which  the  intellect  can  consider  as  pre 
ferable. 

Matter,  then,  irradiated  into  space  with  a  force  varying 
as  the  squares  of  the  distances,  might,  a  priori,  be  supposed 
to  return  towards  its  centre  of  irradiation  with  a  force 
varying  inversely  as  the  squares  of  the  distances  :  and  I 
have  already  shown*  that  any  principle  which  will  explain 
why  the  atoms  should  tend,  according  to  any  law,  to  the 
general  centre,  must  be  admitted  as  satisfactorily  explaining, 
at  the  same  time,  why,  according  to  the  same  law,  they 
should  tend  each  to  each.  For,  in  fact,  the  tendency  to  the 
general  centre  is  not  to  a  centre  as  such,  but  because  of  its 
being  a  point  in  tending  towards  which  each  atom  tends 

*  Page  44. 
3* 


58  EUREKA. 


most  directly  to  its  real  and  essential  centre,  Unity — the 
absolute  and  final  Union  of  all. 

The  consideration  here  involved  presents  to  my  own 
mind  no  embarrassment  whatever — but  this  fact  does  not 
blind  me  to  the  possibility  of  its  being  obscure  to  those  who 
may  have  been  less  in  the  habit  of  dealing  with  abstrac 
tions  : — and,  upon  the  whole,  it  may  be  as  well  to  look  at 
the  matter  from  one  or  two  other  points  of  view. 

The  absolute,  irrelative  particle  primarily  created  by  the 
Volition  of  God,  must  have  been  in  a  condition  of  positive 
normality,  or  rightfulness — for  wrongfulness  implies  rela 
tion.  Right  is  positive  ;  wrong  is  negative — is  merely  the 
negation  of  right ;  as  cold  is  the  negation  of  heat — darkness 
of  light.  That  a  thing  may  be  wrong,  it  is  necessary  that 
there  be  some  other  thing  in  relation  to  which  it  is  wrong 
— some  condition  which  it  fails  to  satisfy  ;  some  law  which 
it  violates  ;  some  being  whom  it  aggrieves.  If  there  be  no 
such  being,  law,  or  condition,  in  respect  to  which  the  thing 
is  wrong — and,  still  more  especially,  if  no  beings,  laws,  or 
conditions  exist  at  all — then  the  thing  cannot  be  wrong  and 
consequently  must  be  right.  Any  deviation  from  normality 
involves  a  tendency  to  return  into  it.  A  difference  from 
the  normal — from  the  right — from  the  just — can  be  under 
stood  as  effected  only  by  the  overcoming  a  difficulty  ;  and  if 
the  force  which  overcomes  the  difficulty  be  not  infinitely 
continued,  the  ineradicable  tendency  to  return  will  at 
length  be  permitted  to  act  for  its  own  satisfaction.  Upon 
withdrawal  of  the  force,  the  tendency  acts.  This  is  the 
principle  of  reaction  as  the  inevitable  consequence  of  finite 
action.  Employing  a  phraseology  of  which  the  seeming 


THE     UNIVERSE.  59 

affectation  will  be  pardoned  for  its  expressiveness,  we  may 
say  that  Reaction  is  the  return  from  the  condition  of  as  it 
is  and  ought  not  to  be  into  the  condition  of  as  it  was,  ori 
ginally,  and  therefore  ought  to  be  : — and  let  me  add  here 
that  the  absolute  force  of  Reaction  would  no  doubt  be 
always  found  in  direct  proportion  with  the  reality — the 
truth — the  absoluteness — of  the  originality — if  ever  it  were 
possible  to  measure  this  latter  : — and,  consequently,  the 
greatest  of  all  conceivable  reactions  must  be  that  produced 
by  the  tendency  which  we  now  discuss — the  tendency  to 
return  into  the  absolutely  original — into  the  supremely 
primitive.  Gravity,  then,  must  be  the  strongest  of  forces — 
an  idea  reached  a  priori  and  abundantly  confirmed  by 
induction.  What  use  I  make  of  the  idea,  will  be  seen  in 
the  sequel. 

The  atoms,  now,  having  been  diffused  from  their  normal 

condition  of  Unity,  seek  to  return  to what  ?     Not  to 

any  particular  point,  certainly  ;  for  it  is  clear  that  if,  upon 
the  diffusion,  the  whole  Universe  of  matter  had  been  pro 
jected,  collectively,  to  a  distance  from  the  point  of  irradi 
ation,  the  atomic  tendency  to  the  general  centre  of  the 
sphere  would  not  have  been  disturbed  in  the  least : — the 
atoms  would  not  have  sought  the  point  in  absolute  space 
from  which  they  were  originally  impelled.  It  is  merely  the 
condition,  and  not  the  point  or  locality  at  which  this  con 
dition  took  its  rise,  that  these  atoms  seek  to  re-establish ; — 
it  is  merely  that  condition  which  is  their  normality,  that 
they  desire.  "  But  they  seek  a  centre,"  it  will  be  said, 
"  and  a  centre  is  a  point/'  True  ;  but  they  seek  this  point 
not  in  its  character  of  point — (for,  were  the  whole  sphere 
moved  from  its  position,  they  would  seek,  equally,  the  cen- 


EUREKA. 


tre  ;  and  the  centre  then  would  be  a  new  point) — but  be 
cause  it  so  happens,  on  account  of  the  form  in  which  they 
collectively  exist — (that  of  the  sphere)— that  only  through 
the  point  in  question — the  sphere's  centre — they  can  attain 
their  true  object,  Unity.  In  the  direction  of  the  centre 
each  atom  perceives  more  atoms  than  in  any  other  direc 
tion.  Each  atom  is  impelled  towards  the  centre  because 
along  the  straight  line  joining  it  and  the  centre  and  passing 
on  to  the  circumference  beyond,  there  lie  a  greater  number 
of  atoms  than  along  any  other  straight  line — a  greater  number 
of  objects  that  seek  it,  the  individual  atom — a  greater  num 
ber  of  tendencies  to  Unity — a  greater  number  of  satisfactions 
for  its  own  tendency  to  Unity — in  a  word,  because  in  the 
direction  of  the  centre  lies  the  utmost  possibility  of  satis 
faction,  generally,  for  its  own  individual  appetite.  To  be 
brief,  the  condition,  Unity,  is  all  that  is  really  sought ;  and 
if  the  atoms  seem  to  seek  the  centre  of  the  sphere,  it  is  only 
impliedly,  through  implication — because  such  centre  hap 
pens  to  imply,  to  include,  or  to  involve,  the  only  essential 
centre,  Unity.  But  on  account  of  this  implication  or  invo 
lution,  there  is  no  possibility  of  practically  separating  the 
tendency  to  Unity  in  the  abstract,  from  the  tendency  to 
the  concrete  centre.  Thus  the  tendency  of  the  atoms  to 
the  general  centre  is,  to  all  practical  intents  and  for  all 
logical  purposes,  the  tendency  each  to  each ;  and  the 
tendency  each  to  each  is  the  tendency  to  the  centre  ;  and 
the  one  tendency  may  be  assumed  as  the  other  ;  whatever 
will  apply  to  the  one  must  be  thoroughly  applicable  to  the 
other ;  and,  in  conclusion,  whatever  principle  will  satisfac 
torily  explain  the  one,  cannot  be  questioned  as  an  explana 
tion  of  the  other. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  61 

In  looking  carefully  around  me  for  rational  objection  to 
what  I  have  advanced,  I  am  able  to  discover  nothing ; — 
but  of  that  class  of  objections  usually  urged  by  the  doubters 
for  Doubt's  sake,  I  very  readily  perceive  three ;  and  pro 
ceed  to  dispose  of  them  in  order. 

It  may  be  said,  first :  "  The  proof  that  the  force  of  irra 
diation  (in  the  case  described)  is  directly  proportional  to 
the  squares  of  the  distances,  depends  upon  an  unwarranted 
assumption — that  of  the  number  of  atoms  in  each  stratum 
being  the  measure  of  the  force  with  which  they  are 
emitted." 

I  reply,  not  only  that  I  am  warranted  in  such  assump 
tion,  but  that  I  should  be  utterly  ^warranted  in  any  other. 
What  I  assume  is,  simply,  that  an  effect  is  the  measure  of 
its  cause — that  every  exercise  of  the  Divine  Will  will  be 
proportional  to  that  which  demands  the  exertion — that  the 
means  of  Omnipotence,  or  of  Omniscience,  will  be  exactly 
adapted  to  its  purposes.  Neither  can  a  deficiency  nor  an 
excess  of  cause  bring  to  pass  any  effect.  Had  the  force 
which  irradiated  any  stratum  to  its  position,  been  either 
more  or  less  than  was  needed  for  the  purpose — that  is  to 
say,  not  directly  proportional  to  the  purpose — then  to  its 
position  that  stratum  could  not  have  been  irradiated.  Had 
the  force  which,  with  a  view  to  general  equability  of  dis 
tribution,  emitted  the  proper  number  of  atoms  for  each  stra 
tum,  been  not  directly  proportional  to  the  number,  then  the 
number  would  not  have  been  the  number  demanded  for  the 
equable  distribution. 

The  second  supposable  objection  is  somewhat  better 
entitled  to  an  answer. 


62  EUREKA 


It  is  an  admitted  principle  in  Dynamics  that  every  body, 
on  receiving  an  impulse,  or  disposition  to  move,  will  move 
onward  in  a  straight  line,  in  the  direction  imparted  by  the 
impelling  force,  until  deflected,  or  stopped,  by  some  other 
force.  How  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  my  first  or  external 
stratum  of  atoms  to  be  understood  as  discontinuing  their 
movement  at  the  circumference  of  the  imaginary  glass 
sphere,  when  no  second  force,  of  more  than  an  imaginary 
character,  appears,  to  account  for  the  discontinuance  ? 

I  reply  that  the  objection,  in  this  case,  actually  does 
arise  out  of  "  an  unwarranted  assumption  " — on  the  part  of 
the  objector — the  assumption  of  a  principle,  in  Dynamics, 
at  an  epoch  when  no  "  principles,"  in  anyttmig,  exist : — 
I  use  the  word  "  principle,"  of  course,  in  the  objector's 
understanding  of  the  word. 

"  In  the  beginning "  we  can  admit — indeed  we  can 
comprehend — but  one  First  Cause — the  truly  ultimate 
Principle — the  Volition  of  God.  The  primary  act — that 
of  Irradiation  from  Unity — must  have  been  independent  of 
all  that  which  the  world  now  calls  "  principle  " — because 
all  that  we  so  designate  is  but  a  consequence  of  the  reac 
tion  of  that  primary  act : — I  say  "primary"  act ;  for  the 
creation  of  the  absolute  material  particle  is  more  properly 
to  be  regarded  as  a  conception  than  as  an  "  act "  in  the 
ordinary  meaning  of  the  term.  Thus,  we  must  regard  the 
primary  act  as  an  act  for  the  establishment  of  what  we 
now  call  "  principles."  But  this  primary  act  itself  is  to  be 
considered  as  continuous  Volition.  The  Thought  of  God 
is  to  be  understood  as  originating  the  Diffusion — as  pro 
ceeding  with  it — as  regulating  it — and,  finally,  as  being 


THE     UNIVERSE.  63 

withdrawn  from  it  upon  its  completion.  Then  commences 
Reaction,  and  through  Reaction,  "  Principle,"  as  we  em 
ploy  the  word.  It  will  be  advisable,  however,  to  limit  the 
application  of  this  word  to  the  two  immediate  results  of  the 
discontinuance  of  the  Divine  Volition — that  is,  to  the  two 
agents,  Attraction  and  Repulsion.  Every  other  Natural 
agent  depends,  either  more  or  less  immediately,  upon  these 
two,  and  therefore  would  be  more  conveniently  designated 
as  sub-principle. 

It  may  be  objected,  thirdly,  that,  in  general,  the  peculiar 
mode  of  distribution  which  I  have  suggested  for  the  atoms, 
is  "  an  hypothesis  and  nothing  more." 

Now,  I  am  aware  that  the  word  hypothesis  is  a  ponder 
ous  sledge-hammer,  grasped  immediately,  if  not  lifted,  by 
all  very  diminutive  thinkers,  upon  the  first  appearance  of 
any  proposition  wearing,  in  any  particular,  the  garb  of  a 
theory.  But  "  hypothesis  "  cannot  be  wielded  here  to  any 
good  purpose,  even  by  those  who  succeed  in  lifting  it — little 
men  or  great. 

I  maintain,  first,  that  only  in  the  mode  described  is  it 
conceivable  that  Matter  could  have  been  diffused  so  as  to 
fulfil  at  once  the  conditions  of  irradiation  and  of  generally 
equable  distribution.  I  maintain,  secondly,  that  these  con 
ditions  themselves  have  been  imposed  upon  me,  as  necessi 
ties,  in  a  train  of  ratiocination  as  rigorously  logical  as  that 
which  establishes  any  demonstration  in  Euclid ;  and  I 
maintain,  thirdly,  that  even  if  the  charge  of  "  hypothesis  " 
were  as  fully  sustained  as  it  is,  in  fact,  unsustained  and 
untenable,  still  the  validity  and  indisputability  of  my  result 
would  not,  even  in  the  slightest  particular,  be  disturbed. 


64  EUREKA. 


To  explain  : — The  Newtonian  Gravity — a  law  of  Na 
ture — a  law  whose  existence  as  such  no  one  out  of  Bedlam 
questions — a  law  whose  admission  as  such  enables  us  to 
account  for  nine-tenths  of  the  Universal  phaenomena — a 
law  which,  merely  because  it  does  so  enable  us  to  account 
for  these  pheenomena,  we  are  perfectly  willing,  without 
reference  to  any  other  considerations,  to  admit,  and  cannot 
help  admitting,  as  a  law — a  law,  nevertheless,  of  which 
neither  the  principle  nor  the  modus  operandi  of  the  princi 
ple,  has  ever  yet  been  traced  by  the  human  analysis— a 
law,  in  short,  which,  neither  in  its  detail  nor  in  its  general 
ity,  has  been  found  susceptible  of  explanation  at  all — is  at 
length  seen  to  be  at  every  point  thoroughly  explicable, 

provided  only  we  yield  our  assent  to what  ?  To  an 

hypothesis  ?  Why  if  an  hypothesis — if  the  merest  hypo 
thesis — if  an  hypothesis  for  whose  assumption — as  in  the 
case  of  that  pure  hypothesis  the  Newtonian  law  itself — no 
shadow  of  a  priori  reason  could  be  assigned — if  an  hypo 
thesis,  even  so  absolute  as  all  this  implies,  would  enable  us 
to  perceive  a  principle  for  the  Newtonian  law — would  en 
able  us  to  understand  as  satisfied,  conditions  so  miraculously 
— so  ineffably  complex  and  seemingly  irreconcileable  as 
those  involved  in  the  relations  of  which  Gravity  tells  us, — 
what  rational  being  could  so  expose  his  fatuity  as  to  call 
even  this  absolute  hypothesis  an  hypothesis  any  longer — 
unless,  indeed,  he  were  to  persist  in  so  calling  it,  with  the 
understanding  that  he  did  so,  simply  for  the  sake  of  consist 
ency  in  words  ? 

But  what  is  the  true  state  of  our  present  case  ?  What 
is  the  fact?  Not  only  that  it  is  not  an  hypothesis  which 


THE     UNIVERSE.  65 

we  are  required  to  adopt,  in  order  to  admit  the  principle  at 
issue  explained,  but  that  it  is  a  logical  conclusion  which 
we  are  requested  not  to  adopt  if  we  can  avoid  it — which 
we  are  simply  invited  to  deny  if  we  can  : — a  conclusion  of 
so  accurate  a  logicality  that  to  dispute  it  would  be  the  effort 
— to  doubt  its  validity  beyond  our  power  : — a  conclusion 
from  which  we  see  no  mode  of  escape,  turn  as  we  will ;  a 
result  which  confronts  us  either  at  the  end  of  an  inductive 
journey  from  the  phenomena  of  the  very  Law  discussed, 
or  at  the  close  of  a  Reductive  career  from  the  most  rigor 
ously  simple  of  all  conceivable  assumptions — the  assumption, 
in  a  word,  of  Simplicity  itself. 

And  if  here,  for  the  mere  sake  of  cavilling,  it  be  urged, 
that  although  my  starting-point  is,  as  I  assert,  the  assump 
tion  of  absolute  Simplicity,  yet  Simplicity,  considered  mere 
ly  in  itself,  is  no  axiom  ;  and  that  only  deductions  from 
axioms  are  indisputable — it  is  thus  that  I  reply  : — 

Every  other  science  than  Logic  is  the  science  of  certain 
concrete  relations.  Arithmetic,  for  example,  is  the  science  of 
the  relations  of  number — Geometry,  of  the  relations  of  form 
— Mathematics  in  general,  of  the  relations  of  quantity  in 
general — of  whatever  can  be  increased  or- diminished.  Lo 
gic,  however,  is  the  science  of  Relation  in  the  abstract — 
of  absolute  Relation — of  Relation  considered  solely  in  itself. 
An  axiom  in  any  particular  science  other  than  Logic  is, 
thus,  merely  a  proposition  announcing  certain  concrete 
relations  which  seem  to  be  too  obvious  for  dispute — as 
when  we  say,  for  instance,  that  the  whole  is  greater  than 
its  part : — and,  thus  again,  the  principle  of  the  Logical 
axiom — in  other  words,  of  an  axiom  in  the  abstract — is, 


66  EUREKA. 


simply,  obviousness  of  relation.  Now,  it  is  clear,  not  only 
that  what  is  obvious  to  one  mind  may  not  be  obvious 
to  another,  but  that  what  is  obvious  to  one  mind  at  one 
epoch,  may  be  anything  but  'obvious,  at  another  epoch,  to 
the  same  mind.  It  is  clear,  moreover,  that  what,  to-day, 
is  obvious  even  to  the  majority  of  mankind,  or  to  the  ma 
jority  of  the  best  intellects  of  mankind,  may  to-morrow  be, 
to  either  majority,  more  or  less  obvious,  or  in  no  respect  ob 
vious  at  all.  It  is  seen,  then,  that  the  axiomatic  principle 
itself  is  susceptible  of  variation,  and  of  course  that  axioms 
are  susceptible  of  similar  change.  Being  mutable,  the 
"  truths  "  which  grow  out  of  them  are  necessarily  mutable 
too  ;  or,  in  other  words,  are  never  to  be  positively  depended 
upon  as  truths  at  all — since  Truth  and  Immutability  are  one. 
It  will  now  be  readily  understood  that  no  axiomatic 
idea — no  idea  founded  in  the  fluctuating  principle,  obvious 
ness  of  relation — can  possibly  be  so  secure — so  reliable  a 
basis  for  any  structure  erected  by  the  Reason,  as  that  idea 
— (whatever  it  is,  wherever  we  can  find  it,  or  if  it  be  prac 
ticable  to  find  it  anywhere) — which  is  zrrelative  altogether 
— which  not  only  presents  to  the  understanding  no  obvious 
ness  of  relation,  either  greater  or  less,  to  be  considered,  but 
subjects  the  intellect,  not  in  the  slighest  degree,  to  the  ne 
cessity  of  even  looking  at  any  relation  at  all.  If  such  an 
idea  be  not  what  we  too  heedlessly  term  "  an  axiom,"  it  is 
at  least  preferable,  as  a  Logical  basis,  to  any  axiom  ever 
propounded,  or  to  all  imaginable  axioms  combined  : — and 
such,  precisely,  is  the  idea  with  which  my  deductive  pro 
cess,  so  thoroughly  corroborated  by  induction,  commences. 
My  particle  proper  is  but  absolute  Irrelation.  To  sum  up 


THE     UNIVERSE.  67 

what  has  been  here  advanced  : — As  a  starting  point  I 
have  taken  it  for  granted,  simply,  that  the  Beginning  had 
nothing  behind  it  or  before  it — that  it  was  a  Beginning  in 
fact — that  it  was  a  beginning  and  nothing  different  from  a 

beginning — in  short  that  this  Beginning  was that  which 

it  was.  If  this  be  a  "  mere  assumption "  then  a  "  mere 
assumption  "  let  it  be. 

To  conclude  this  branch  of  the  subject : — I  am  fully 
warranted  in  announcing  that  the  Law  which  we  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  calling  Gravity  exists  on  account  of  Matter  s 
having  been  irradiated,  at  its  origin,  atomically,  into  a 
limited*  sphere  of  Space,  from  one,  individual,  uncondi 
tional,  irrelative,  and  absolute  Particle  Proper,  by  the  sole 
process  in  which  it  was  possible  to  satisfy,  at  the  same  time, 
the  two  conditions,  irradiation,  and  generally -equable  dis 
tribution  throughout  the  sphere — that  is  to  say,  by  a  force 
varying  in  direct  proportion  with  the  squares  of  the  dis 
tances  between  the  irradiated  atoms,  respectively,  and  the 
Particular  centre  of  Irradiation. 

I  have  already  given  my  reasons  for  presuming  Matter 
to  have  been  diffused  by  a  determinate  rather  than  by  a 
continuous  or  infinitely  continued  force.  Supposing  a  con 
tinuous  force,  we  should  be  unable,  in  the  first  place,  to 
comprehend  a  reaction  at  all ;  and  we  should  be  required, 
in  the  second  place,  to  entertain  the  impossible  concep 
tion  of  an  infinite  extension  of  Matter.  Not  to  dwell 
upon  the  impossibility  of  the  conception,  the  infinite  exten 
sion  of  Matter  is  an  idea  which,  if  not  positively  disproved, 

*  Limited  sphere" — A  sphere  is  necessarily  limited.     I  prefer  tautology 
to  a  chance  of  misconception. 


68  EUREKA. 


is  at  least  not  in  any  respect  warranted  by  telescopic 
observation  of  the  stars — a  point  to  be  explained  more  fully 
hereafter ;  and  this  empirical  reason  for  believing  in  the 
original  finity  of  Matter  is  unempirically  confirmed.  For 
example  : — Admitting,  for  the  moment,  the  possibility  of 
understanding  Space  filled  with  the  irradiated  atoms — that 
is  to  say,  admitting,  as  well  as  we  can,  for  argument's  sake, 
that  the  succession  of  the  irradiated  atoms  had  absolutely 
?io  end — then  it  is  abundantly  clear  that,  even  when  the 
Volition  of  God  had  been  withdrawn  from  them,  and  thus 
the  tendency  to  return  into  Unity  permitted  (abstractly)  to 
be  satisfied,  this  permission  would  have  been  nugatory  and 
invalid — practically  valueless  and  of  no  effect  whatever. 
No  Reaction  could  have  taken  place  ;  no  movement  toward 
Unity  could  have  been  made  ;  no  Law  of  Gravity  could 
have  obtained. 

To  explain  : — Grant  the  abstract  tendency  of  any  one 
atom  to  any  one  other  as  the  inevitable  result  of  diffusion 
from  the  normal  Unity  : — or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  admit 
any  given  atom  as  proposing  to  move  in  any  given  direc 
tion — it  is  clear  that,  since  there  is  an  infinity  of  atoms  on 
all  sides  of  the  atom  proposing  to  move,  it  never  can  actually 
move  toward  the  satisfaction  of  its  tendency  in  the  direc 
tion  given,  on  account  of  a  precisely  equal  and  counter 
balancing  tendency  in  the  direction  diametrically  opposite. 
In  other  words,  exactly  as  many  tendencies  to  Unity  are 
behind  the  hesitating  atom  as  before  it ;  for  it  is  a  mere 
sotticism  to  say  that  one  infinite  line  is  longer  or  shorter 
than  another  infinite  line,  or  that  one  infinite  number  is 
greater  or  less  than  another  number  that  is  infinite.  Thus 


THE     UNIVERSE.  69 

the  atom  in  question  must  remain  stationary  forever.  Under 
the  impossible  circumstances  which  we  have  been  merely 
endeavoring  to  conceive  for  argument's  sake,  there  could 
have  been  no  aggregation  of  Matter — no  stars — no  worlds 
— nothing  but  a  perpetually  atomic  and  inconsequential 
Universe.  In  fact,  view  it  as  we  will,  the  whole  idea  of 
unlimited  Matter  is  not  only  untenable,  but  impossible  and 
preposterous. 

With  the  understanding  of  a  sphere  of  atoms,  however, 
we  perceive,  at  once,  a  satisfiable  tendency  to  union.  The 
general  result  of  the  tendency  each  to  each,  being  a  tend 
ency  of  all  to  the  centre,  the  general  process  of  condensa 
tion,  or  approximation,  commences  immediately,  by  a  com 
mon  and  simultaneous  movement,  on  withdrawal  of  the 
Divine  Volition  ;  the  individual  approximations,  or  coales 
cences — not  coalitions — of  atom  with  atom,  being  subject 
to  almost  infinite  variations  of  time,  degree,  and  condition, 
on  account  of  the  excessive  multiplicity  of  relation,  arising 
from  the  differences  of  form  assumed  as  characterizing  the 
atoms  at  the  moment  of  their  quitting  the  Particle  Proper ; 
as  well  as  from  the  subsequent  particular  inequidistance, 
each  from  each. 

•  What  I  wish  to  impress  upon  the  reader  is  the  certainty 
of  there  arising,  at  once,  (on  withdrawal  of  the  diffusive 
force,  or  Divine  Volition,)  out  of  the  condition  of  the  atoms 
as  described,  at  innumerable  points  throughout  the  Uni 
versal  sphere,  innumerable  agglomerations,  characterized 
by  innumerable  specific  differences  of  form,  size,  essential 
nature,  and  distance  each  from  each.  The  development  of 
Repulsion  (Electricity)  must  have  commenced,  of  course, 


70  EUREKA. 


with  the  very  earliest  particular  efforts  at  Unity,  and  must 
have  proceeded  constantly  in  the  ratio  of  Coalescence — 
that  is  to  say,  in  that  of  Condensation,  or,  again,  of  Hetero 
geneity. 

Thus  the  two  Principles  Proper,  Attraction  and  Repul 
sion — the  Material  and  the  Spiritual — accompany  each 
other,  in  the  strictest  fellowship,  forever.  Thus  The  Body 
and  The  Soul  walk  hand  in  hand. 

If  now,  in  fancy,  we  select  any  one  of  the  agglomera 
tions  considered  as  in  their  primary  stages  throughout  the 
Universal  sphere,  ami  suppose  this  incipient  agglomeration 
to  be  taking  place  at  that  point  where  the  centre  of  our  Sun 
exists — or  rather  where  it  did  exist  originally  ;  for  the  Sun 
is  perpetually  shifting  his  position — we  shall  find  ourselves 
met,  and  borne  onward  for  a  time  at  least,  by  the  most 
magnificent  of  theories — by  the  Nebular  Cosmogony  of 
Laplace  : — although  "  Cosmogony  "  is  far  too  comprehen 
sive  a  term  for  what  he  really  discusses — which  is  the  con 
stitution  of  our  solar  system  alone — of  one  among  the  my 
riad  of  similar  systems  which  make  up  the  Universe  Proper 
— that  Universal  sphere — that  all-inclusive  and  absolute 
Kosmos  which  forms  the  subject  of  my  present  Discourse. 

Confining  himself  to  an  obviously  limited  region — that 
of  our  solar  system  with  its  comparatively  immediate  vici 
nity — and  merely  assuming — that  is  to  say,  assuming  with 
out  any  basis  whatever,  either  deductive  or  inductive — 
much  of  what  I  have  been  just  endeavoring  to  place  upon 
a  more  stable  basis  than  assumption  ;  assuming,  for  exam 
ple,  matter  as  diffused  (without  pretending  to  account  for 
the  diffusion)  throughout,  and  somewhat  beyond,  the  space 


THE     UNIVERSE.  71 

occupied  by  our  system — diffused  in  a  state  of  heterogeneous 
nebulosity  and  obedient  to  that  omniprevalent  law  of  Gra 
vity  at  whose  principle  he  ventured  to  make  no  guess  ; — 
assuming  all  this  (which  is  quite  true,  although  he  had  no 
logical  right  to  its  assumption)  Laplace  has  shown,  dyna 
mically  and  mathematically,  that  the  results  in  such  case 
necessarily  ensuing,  are  those  and  those  alone  which  we 
find  manifested  in  the  actually  existing  condition  of  the 
system  itself. 

To  explain  : — Let  us  conceive  that  particular  agglome 
ration  of  which  we  have  just  spoken — the  one  at  the  point 
designated  by  our  Sun's  centre — to  have  so  far  proceeded 
that  a  vast  quantity  of  nebulous  matter  has  here  assumed  a 
roughly  globular  form  ;  its  centre  being,  of  course,  coinci 
dent  with  what  is  now,  or  rather  was  originally,  the  centre 
of  our  Sun ;  and  its  periphery  extending  out  beyond  the 
orbit  of  Neptune,  the  most  remote  of  our  planets  : — in  other 
words,  let  us  suppose  the  diameter  of  this  rough  sphere  to 
be  some  6000  millions  of  miles.  For  ages,  this  mass  of 
matter  has  been  undergoing  condensation,  until  at  length 
it  has  become  reduced  into  the  bulk  we  imagine ;  having 
proceeded  gradually,  of  course,  from  its  atomic  and  imper 
ceptible  state,  into  what  we  understand  of  visible,  palpable, 
or  otherwise  appreciable  nebulosity. 

Now,  the  condition  of  this  mass  implies  a  rotation  about 
an  imaginary  axis — a  rotation  which,  commencing  with  the 
absolute  incipiency  of  the  aggregation,  has  been  ever  since 
acquiring  velocity.  The  very  first  two  atoms  which  met, 
approaching  each  other  from  points  not  diametrically  oppo 
site,  would,  in  rushing  partially  past  each  other,  form  a 


72  EUREKA. 


nucleus  for  the  rotary  movement  described.  How  this 
would  increase  in  velocity,  is  readily  seen.  The  two  atoms 
are  joined  by  others  : — an.  aggregation  is  formed.  The  mass 
continues  to  rotate  while  condensing.  But  any  atom  at  the 
circumference  has,  of  course,  a  more  rapid  motion  than  one 
nearer  the  centre.  The  outer  atom,  however,  with  its 
superior  velocity,  approaches  the  centre  ;  carrying  this  su 
perior  velocity  with  it  as  it  goes.  Thus  every  atom,  pro 
ceeding  inwardly,  and  finally  attaching  itself  to  the  con 
densed  centre,  adds  something  to  the  original  velocity  of 
that  centre — that  is  to  say,  increases  the  rotary  movement 
of  the  mass. 

Let  us  now  suppose  this  mass  so  far  condensed  that  it 
occupies  precisely  the  space  circumscribed  by  the  orbit  of 
Neptune,  and  that  the  velocity  with  which  the  surface  of 
the  mass  moves,  in  the  general  rotation,  is  precisely  that 
velocity  with  which  Neptune  now  revolves  about  the  Sun. 
At  this  epoch,  then,  we  are  to  understand  that  the  con 
stantly  increasing  centrifugal  force,  having  gotten  the  better 
of  the  non-increasing  centripetal,  loosened  and  separated 
the  exterior  and  least  condensed  stratum,  or  a  few  of  the 
exterior  and  least  condensed  strata,  at  the  equator  of  the 
sphere,  where  the  tangential  velocity  predominated ;  so 
that  these  strata  formed  about  the  main  body  an  inde 
pendent  ring  encircling  the  equatorial  regions :— just  as  the 
exterior  portion  thrown  off,  by  excessive  velocity  of  rota 
tion,  from  a  grindstone,  would  form  a  ring  about  the  grind 
stone,  but  for  the  solidity  of  the  superficial  material :  were 
this  caoutchouc,  or  anything  similar  in  consistency,  pre 
cisely  the  phenomenon  I  describe  would  be  presented. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  73 

The  ring  thus  whirled  from  the  nebulous  mass,  revolved, 
of  course,  as  a  separate  ring,  with  just  that  velocity  with 
which,  while  the  surface  of  the  mass,  it  rotated.  In  the 
meantime,  condensation  still  proceeding,  the  interval  be 
tween  the  discharged  ring  and  the  main  body  continued  to 
increase,  until  the  former  was  left  at  a  vast  distance  from 
the  latter. 

Now,  admitting  the  ring  to  have  possessed,  by  some 
seemingly  accidental  arrangement  of  its  heterogeneous  ma 
terials,  a  constitution  nearly  uniform,  then  this  ring,  as  such, 
would  never  have  ceased  revolving  about  its  primary ;  but, 
as  might  have  been  anticipated,  there  appears  to  have  been 
enough  irregularity  in  the  disposition  of  the  materials,  to  make 
them  cluster  about  centres  of  superior  solidity;  and  thus  the 
annular  form  was  destroyed.*  No  doubt,  the  band  was  soon 
broken  up  into  several  portions,  and  one  of  these  portions, 
predominating  in  mass,  absorbed  the  others  into  itself;  the 
whole  settling,  spherically,  into  a  planet.  That  this  latter,  as 
a  planet,  continued  the  revolutionary  movement  which  char 
acterized  it  while  a  ring,  is  sufficiently  clear;  and  that  it  took 
upon  itself,  also,  an  additional  movement  in  its  new  condi 
tion  of  sphere,  is  readily  explained.  The  ring  being  under 
stood  as  yet  unbroken,  we  see  that  its  exterior,  while  the 
whole  revolves  about  the  parent  body,  moves  more  rapidly 
than  its  interior.  When  the  rupture  occurred,  then,  some 

*  Laplace  assumed  his  nebulosity  heterogeneous,  merely  that  he  might  be 
thus  enabled  to  account  for  the  breaking  up  of  the  rings  ;  for  had  the  nebulo 
sity  been  homogeneous,  they  would  not  have  broken.  I  reach  the  same  result — 
heterogeneity  of  the  secondary  masses  immediately  resulting  from  the  atoms — 
purely  from  an  CL  priori  consideration  of  their  general  design — Relation. 

4 


74  EUREKA. 


portion  in  each  fragment  must  have  been  moving  with 
greater  velocity  than  the  others.  The  superior  movement 
prevailing,  must  have  whirled  each  fragment  round — that  is 
to  say,  have  caused  it  to  rotate  ;  and  the  direction  of  the 
rotation  must,  of  course,  have  been  the  direction  of  the 
revolution  whence  it  arose.  All  the  fragments  'having  be 
come  subject  to  the  rotation  described,  must,  in  coalescing, 
have  imparted  it  to  the  one  planet  constituted  by  their  coa 
lescence. — This  planet  was  Neptune.  Its  material  continu 
ing  to  undergo  condensation,  and  the  centrifugal  force 
generated  in  its  rotation  getting,  at  length,  the  better  of  the 
centripetal,  as  before  in  the  case  of  the  parent  orb,  a  ring 
was  whirled  also  from  the  equatorial  surface  of  this  planet : 
this  ring,  having  been  ununiform  in  its  constitution,  was 
broken  up,  and  its  several  fragments,  being  absorbed  by  the 
most  massive,  were  collectively  spherified  into  a  moon. 
Subsequently,  the  operation  was  repeated,  and  a  second 
moon  was  the  result.  We  thus  account  for  the  planet 
Neptune,  with  the  two  satellites  which  accompany  him. 

In  throwing  off  a  ring  from  its  equator,  the  Sun  re 
established  that  equilibrium  between  its  centripetal  and 
centrifugal  forces  which  had  been  disturbed  in  the  process 
of  condensation  ;  but,  as  this  condensation  still  proceeded, 
the  equilibrium  was  again  immediately  disturbed,  through 
the  increase  of  rotation.  By  the  time  the  mass  had  so  far 
shrunk  that  it  occupied  a  spherical  space  just  that  circum 
scribed  by  the  orbit  of  Uranus,  we  are  to  understand  that 
the  centrifugal  force  had  so  far  obtained  the  ascendency 
that  new  relief  was  needed  :  a  second  equatorial  band  was, 
consequently,  thrown  off,  which,  proving  ununiform,  was 


THE     UNIVERSE.  75 

broken  up,  as  before  in  the  case  of  Neptune ;  the  fragments  "* 
settling  into  the  planet  Uranus  ;  the  velocity  of  whose  ac 
tual  revolution  about  the  Sun  indicates,  of  course,  the  rotary 
speed  of  that  Sun's  equatorial  surface  at  the  moment  of  the 
separation.  Uranus,  adopting  a  rotation  from  the  collec 
tive  rotations  of  the  fragments  composing  it,  as  previously 
explained,  now  threw  off  ring  after  ring ;  each  of  which, 
becoming  broken  up,  settled  into  a  moon  : — three  moons, 
at  different  epochs,  having  been  formed,  in  this  manner,  by 
the  rupture  and  general  spherification  of  as  many  distinct 
ununiform  rings. 

By  the  time  the  Sun  had  shrunk  until  it  occupied  a 
space  just  that  circumscribed  by  the  orbit  of  Saturn,  the 
balance,  we  are  to  suppose,  between  its  centripetal  and 
centrifugal  forces  had  again  become  so  far  disturbed,  through 
increase  of  rotary  velocity,  the  result  of  condensation,  that 
a  third  effort  at  equilibrium  became  necessary ;  and  an 
annular  band  was  therefore  whirled  off,  as  twice  before  ; 
which,  on  rupture  through  ununiformity,  became  consoli 
dated  into  the  planet  Saturn.  This  latter  threw  off,  in  the 
first  place,  seven  uniform  bands,  which,  on  rupture,  were 
spherified  respectively  into  as  many  moons ;  but,  subse 
quently,  it  appears  to  have  discharged,  at  three  distinct  but 
not  very  distant  epochs,  three  rings  whose  equability  of  con 
stitution  was,  by  apparent  accident,  so  considerable  as  to 
present  no  occasion  for  their  rupture  ;  thus  they  continue 
to  revolve  as  rings.  I  use  the  phrase  "  apparent  accident ;" 
for  of  accident  in  the  ordinary  sense  there  was,  of  course, 
nothing : — the  term  is  properly  applied  only  to  the  result 
of  indistinguishable  or  not  immediately  traceable  law. 


76  EUREKA. 

• 


Shrinking  still  farther,  until  it  occupied  just  the  space 
circumscribed  by  the  orbit  of  Jupiter,  the  Sun  now  found 
need  of  farther  effort  to  restore  the  counterbalance  of  its 
two  forces,  continually  disarranged  in  the  still  continued 
increase  of  rotation.  Jupiter,  accordingly,  was  now  thrown 
off;  passing  from  the  annular  to  the  planetary  condition  ; 
and,  on  attaining  this  latter,  threw  off  in  its  turn,  at  four 
different  epochs,  four  rings,  which  finally  resolved  them 
selves  into  so  many  moons. 

Still  shrinking,  until  its  sphere  occupied  just  the  space 
defined  by  the  orbit  of  the  Asteroids,  the  Sun  now  discarded 
a  ring  which  appears  to  have  had  eight  centres  of  superior 
solidity,  and,  on  breaking  up,  to  have  separated  into  eight 
fragments  no  one  of  which  so  far  predominated  in  mass  as 
to  absorb  the  others.  All  therefore,  as  distinct  although 
comparatively  small  planets,  proceeded  to  revolve  in  orbits 
whose  distances,  each  from  each,  may  be  considered  as  in 
some  degree  the  measure  of  the  force  which  drove  them 
asunder  : — all  the  orbits,  nevertheless,  being  so  closely  coin 
cident  as  to  admit  of  our  calling  them  one,  in  view  of  the 
other  planetary  orbits. 

Continuing  to  shrink,  the  Sun,  on  becoming  so  small  as 
just  to  fill  the  orbit  of  Mars,  now  discharged  this  planet — 
of  course  by  the  process  repeatedly  described.  Having  no 
moon,  however,  Mars  could  have  thrown  off  no  ring.  In 
fact,  an  epoch  had  now  arrived  in  the  career  of  the  parent 
body,  the  centre  of  the  system.  The  decrease  of  its  nebu 
losity,  which  is  the  mcrease  of  its  density,  and  which  again 
is  the  decrease  of  its  condensation,  out  of  which  latter  arose 
the  constant  disturbance  of  equilibrium — must,  by  this  pe- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  77 

riod,  have  attained  a  point  at  which  the  efforts  for  restora 
tion  would  have  been  more  and  more  ineffectual  'just  in 
proportion  as  they  were  less  frequently  needed.  Thus  the 
processes  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  would  every 
where  show  signs  of  exhaustion — in  the  planets,  first,  and 
secondly,  in  the  original  mass.  We  must  not  fall  into  the 
error  of  supposing  the  decrease  of  interval  observed  among 
the  planets  as  we  approach  the  Sun,  to  be  in  any  respect 
indicative  of  an  increase  of  frequency  in  the  periods  at 
which  they  were  discarded.  Exactly  the  converse  is  to  be 
understood.  The  longest  interval  of  time  must  have  oc 
curred  between  the  discharges  of  the  two  interior ;  the 
shortest,  between  those  of  the  two  exterior,  planets.  The 
decrease  of  the  interval  of  space  is,  nevertheless,  the  mea 
sure  of  the  density,  and  thus  inversely  of  the  condensation, 
of  the  Sun,  throughout  the  processes  detailed. 

Having  shrunk,  however,  so  far  as  to  fill  only  the  orbit 
of  our  Earth,  the  parent  sphere  whirled  from  itself  still  one 
other  body — the  Earth — in  a  condition  so  nebulous  as  to 
admit  of  this  body's  discarding,  in  its  turn,  yet  another, 
which  is  our  Moon  ; — but  here  terminated  the  lunar  forma 
tions. 

Finally,  subsiding  to  the  orbits  first  of  Venus  and  then  of 
Mercury,  the  Sun  discarded  these  two  interior  planets ; 
neither  of  which  has  given  birth  to  any  moon. 

Thus  from  his  original  bulk — or,  to  speak  more  accu 
rately,  from  the  condition  in  which  we  first  considered  him 
— from  a  partially  spherified  nebular  mass,  certainly  much 
more  than  5,600  millions  of  miles  in  diameter — the  great 
central  orb  and  origin  of  our  solar-planetary-lunar  system, 


78  EUREKA. 


has  gradually  descended,  by  condensation,  in  obedience  to 
the  law  of  Gravity,  to  a  globe  only  882,000  miles  in  diame 
ter  ;  but  it  by  no  means  follows,  either  that  its  condensation 
is  yet  complete,  or  that  it  may  not  still  possess  the  capacity 
of  whirling  from  itself  another  planet. 

I  have  here  given — in  outline  of  course,  but  still  with 
all  the  detail  necessary  for  distinctness — a  view  of  the  Ne 
bular  Theory  as  its  author  himself  conceived  it.  From 
whatever  point  we  regard  it,  we  shall  find  it  beautifully 
true.  It  is  by  far  too  beautiful,  indeed,  not  to  possess  Truth 
as  its  essentiality — and  here  I  am  very  profoundly  serious 
in  what  I  say.  In  the  revolution  of  the  satellites  of  Uranus, 
there  does  appear  something  seemingly  inconsistent  with 
the  assumptions  of  Laplace  ;  but  that  one  inconsistency  can 
invalidate  a  theory  constructed  from  a  million  of  intricate 
consistencies,  is  a  fancy  fit  only  for  the  fantastic.  In  pro- 
phecying,  confidently,  that  the  apparent  anomaly  to  which 
I  refer,  will,  sooner  or  later,  be  found  one  of  the  strongest 
possible  corroborations  of  the  general  hypothesis,  I  pretend 
to  no  especial  spirit  of  divination.  It  is  a  matter  which  the 
only  difficulty  seems  not  to  foresee.*' 

The  bodies  whirled  off  in  the  processes  described,  would 
exchange,  it  has  been  seen,  the  superficial  rotation  of  the 
orbs  whence  they  originated,  for  a  revolution  of  equal  velo 
city  about  these  orbs  as  distant  centres  ;  and  the  revolution 
thus  engendered  must  proceed,  so  long  as  the  centripetal 
force,  or  that  with  which  the  discarded  body  gravitates  to- 

*  I  am  prepared  to  show  that  the  anomalous  revolution  of  the  satellites  of 
Uranus  is  a  simply  perspective  anomaly  arising  from  the  inclination  of  the  axis 
of  the  planet. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  79 

ward  its  parent,  is  neither  greater  nor  less  than  that  by 
which  it  was  discarded;  that  is,  than  the  centrifugal,  or, 
far  more  properly,  than  the  tangential,  velocity.  From  the 
unity,  however,  of  the  origin  of  these  two  forces,  we  might 
have  expected  to  find  them  as  they  are  found — the  one 
accurately  counterbalancing  the  other.  It  has  been  shown, 
indeed,  that  the  act  of  whirling-off  is,  in  every  case,  merely 
an  act  for  the  preservation  of  the  counterbalance. 

After  referring,  however,  the  centripetal  force  to  the 
omniprevalent  law  of  Gravity,  it  has  been  the  fashion  with 
astronomical  treatises,  to  seek  beyond  the  limits  of  mere 
Nature — that  is  to  say,  of  Secondary  Cause — a  solution  of 
the  phenomenon  of  tangential  velocity.  This  latter  they 
attribute  directly  to  a  First  Cause — to  God.  The  force 
which  carries  a  stellar  body  around  its  primary  they  assert 
to  have  originated  in  an  impulse  given  immediately  by  the 
finger — this  is  the  childish  phraseology  employed — by  the 
finger  of  Deity  itself.  In  this  view,  the  planets,  fully  formed, 
are  conceived  to  have  been  hurled  from  the  Divine  hand, 
to  a  position  in  the  vicinity  of  the  suns,  with  an  impetus 
mathematically  adapted  to  the  masses,  or  attractive  capaci 
ties,  of  the  suns  themselves.  An  idea  so  grossly  unphiloso- 
phical,  although  so  supinely  adopted,  could  have  arisen 
only  from  the  difficulty  of  otherwise  accounting  for  the 
absolutely  accurate  adaptation,  each  to  each,  of  two  forces 
so  seemingly  independent,  one  of  the  other,  as  are  the  gra 
vitating  and  tangential.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that, 
for  a  long  time,  the  coincidence  between  the  moon's  rota 
tion  and  her  sidereal  revolution — two  matters  seemingly 
far  more  independent  than  those  now  considered — was 


80  E  U  R  E  K  A . 


looked  upon  as  positively  miraculous  ;  and  there  was  a 
strong  disposition,  even  among  astronomers,  to  attribute 
the  marvel  to  the  direct  and  continual  agency  of  God — 
who,  in  this  case,  it  was  said,  had  found  it  necessary  to  in 
terpose,  specially,  among  his  general  laws,  a  set  of  subsidiary 
regulations,  for  the  purpose  of  forever  concealing  from  mor 
tal  eyes  the  glories,  or  perhaps  the  horrors,  of  the  other  side 
of  the  Moon — of  that  mysterious  hemisphere  which  has  al 
ways  avoided,  and  must  perpetually  avoid,  the  telescopic 
scrutiny  of  mankind.  The  advance  of  Science,  however, 
soon  demonstrated — what  to  the  philosophical  instinct 
needed  no  demonstration — that  the  one  movement  is  but  a 
portion — something  more,  even,  than  a  consequence— of 
the  other. 

For  my  part,  I  have  no  patience  with  fantasies  at  once 
so  timorous,  so  idle,  and  so  awkward.  They  belong  to 
the  veriest  cowardice  of  thought.  That  Nature  and  the 
God  of  Nature  are  distinct,  no  thinking  being  can  long 
doubt.  By  the  former  we  imply  merely  the  laws  of  the 
latter.  But  with  the  very  idea  of  God,  omnipotent,  omni 
scient,  we  entertain,  also,  the  idea  of  the  infallibility  of  his 
laws.  With  Him  there  being  neither  Past  nor  Future — 
with  Him  all  being  Now — do  we  not  insult  him  in  suppos 
ing  his  laws  so  contrived  as  not  to  provide  for  every  possible 
contingency  ? — or,  rather,  what  idea  can  we  have  of  any 
possible  contingency,  except  that  it  is  at  once  a  result  and 
a  manifestation  of  his  laws  ?  He  who,  divesting  himself  of 
prejudice,  shall  have  the  rare  courage  to  think  absolutely 
for  himself,  cannot  fail  to  arrive,  in  the  end,  at  the  conden 
sation  of  laws  into  Law — cannot  fail  of  reaching  the  con- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  81 

elusion  that  each  law  of  Nature  is  dependent  at  all  points 
upon  all  other  laws,  and  that  all  are  but  consequences  of 
one  primary  exercise  of  the  Divine  Volition.  Such  is  the 
principle  of  the  Cosmogony  which,  with  all  necessary  defe 
rence,  I  here  venture  to  suggest  and  to  maintain. 

In  this  view,  it  will  be  seen  that,  dismissing  as  frivolous, 
and  even  impious,  the  fancy  of  the  tangential  force  having 
been  imparted  to  the  planets  immediately  by  "  the  finger  of 
God,"  I  consider  this  force  as  originating  in  the  rotation  of 
the  stars  : — this  rotation  as  brought  about  by  the  in-rushing 
of  the  primary  atoms,  towards  their  respective  centres  of 
aggregation  : — this  in-rushing  as  the  consequence  of  the  law 
of  Gravity  :-r-this  law  as  but  the  mode  in  which  is  neces 
sarily  manifested  the  tendency  of  the  atoms  to  return  into 
imparticularity  : — this  tendency  to  return  as  but  the  inevi 
table  reaction  of  the  first  and  most  sublime  of  Acts — that 
act  by  which  a  God,  self- existing  and  alone  existing,  be 
came  all  things  at  once,  through  dint  of  his  volition,  while 
all  things  were  thus  constituted  a  portion  of  God. 

The  radical  assumptions  of  this  Discourse  suggest  to 
me,  and  in  fact  imply,  certain  important  modifications  of 
the  Nebular  Theory  as  given  by  Laplace.  The  efforts  of 
the  repulsive  power  I  have  considered  as  made  for  the  pur 
pose  of  preventing  contact  among  the  atoms,  and  thus  as 
made  in  the  ratio  of  the  approach  to  contact — that  is  to  say, 
in  the  ratio  of  condensation.*  In  other  words,  Electri 
city,  with  its  involute  phenomena,  heat,  light  and  magnet 
ism,  is  to  be  understood  as  proceeding  as  condensation 
proceeds,  and,  of  course,  inversely  as  density  proceeds, 

*  See  page  70. 

4* 


82  EUREKA. 


or  the  cessation  to  condense.  Thus  the  Sun,  in  the  process 
of  its  aggregation,  must  soon,  in  developing  repulsion,  have 
become  excessively  heated — perhaps  incandescent :  and  we 
can  perceive  how  the  operation  of  discarding  its  rings  must 
have  been  materially  assisted  by  the  slight  incrustation  of 
its  surface  consequent  on  cooling.  Any  common  experi 
ment  shows  us  how  readily  a  crust  of  the  character  sug 
gested,  is  separated,  through  heterogeneity,  from  the  inte 
rior  mass.  But,  on  every  successive  rejection  of  the  crust, 
the  new  surface  would  appear  incandescent  as  before ;  and 
the  period  at  which  it  would  again  become  so  far  encrusted 
as  to  be  readily  loosened  and  discharged,  may  well  be  ima 
gined  as  exactly  coincident  with  that  at  which  a  new  effort 
would  be  needed,  by  the  whole  mass,  to  restore  the  equili 
brium  of  its  two  forces,  disarranged  through  condensation. 
In  other  words  : — by  the  time  the  electric  influence  (Re 
pulsion)  has  prepared  the  surface  for  rejection,  we  are  to 
understand  that  the  gravitating  influence  (Attraction)  is 
precisely  ready  to  reject  it.  Here,  then,  as  everywhere,  the 
Body  and  the  Soul  walk  hand  in  hand. 

These  ideas  are  empirically  confirmed  at  all  points. 
Since  condensation  can  never,  in  any  body,  be  considered 
as  absolutely  at  an  end,  we  are  warranted  in  anticipating 
that,  whenever  we  have  an  opportunity  of  testing  the  mat 
ter,  we  shall  find  indications  of  resident  luminosity  in  all 
the  stellar  bodies — moons  and  planets  as  well  as  suns.  That 
our  Moon  is  strongly  self-luminous,  we  see  at  her  every 
total  eclipse,  when,  if  not  so,  she  would  disappear.  On  the 
dark  part  of  the  satellite,  too,  during  her  phases,  we  often 
observe  flashes  like  our  own  Auroras ;  and  that,  these  lat 
ter,  with  our  various  other  so-called  electrical  phenomena, 


THE     UNIVERSE.  83 

without  reference  to  any  more  steady  radiance,  must  give 
our  Earth  a  certain  appearance  of  luminosity  to  an  inhabit 
ant  of  the  Moon,  is  quite  evident.  In  fact,  we  should  regard 
all  the  phenomena  referred  to,  as  mere  manifestations,  in 
different  moods  and  degrees,  of  the  Earth's  feebly-conti 
nued  condensation. 

If  my  views  are  tenable,  we  should  be  prepared  to  find 
the  newer  planets — that  is  to  say,  those  nearer  the  Sun — 
more  luminous  than  those  older  and  more  remote  : — and 
the  extreme  brilliancy  of  Venus  (on  whose  dark  portions, 
during  her  phases,  the  Auroras  are  frequently  visible)  does 
not  seem  to  be  altogether  accounted  for  by  her  mere  proxi 
mity  to  the  central  orb.  fehe  is  no  doubt  vividly  self-lumi 
nous,  although  less  so  than  Mercury  :  while  the  luminosity 
of  Neptune  may  be  comparatively  nothing. 

Admitting  what  I  have  urged,  it  is  clear  that,  from  the 
moment  of  the  Sun's  discarding  a  ring,  there  must  be  a 
continuous  diminution  both  of  his  heat  and  light,  on  account 
of  the  continuous  encrustation  of  his  surface ;  and  that  a 
period  would  arrive — the  period  immediately  previous  to  a 
new  discharge — when  a  very  material  decrease  of  both 
light  and  heat,  must  become  apparent.  Now,  we  know 
that  tokens  of  such  changes  are  distinctly  recognizable. 
On  the  Melville  islands — to  adduce  merely  one  out  of  a 
hundred  examples — we  find  traces  of  ultra-tropical  vege 
tation — of  plants  that  never  could  have  flourished  without 
immensely  more  light  and  heat  than  are  at  present  afforded 
by  our  Sun  to  any  portion  of  the  surface  of  the  Earth.  Is 
such  vegetation  referable  to  an  epoch  immediately  subse 
quent  to  the  whirling-off  of  Venus  ?  At  this  epoch  must 


84  EUREKA. 


have  occurred  to  us  our  greatest  access  of  solar  influence  ; 
and,  in  fact,  this  influence  must  then  have  attained  its  maxi 
mum  : — leaving  out  of  view,  of  course,  the  period  when  the 
Earth  itself  was  discarded — the  period  of  its  mere  organi 
zation. 

Again : — we  know  that  there  exist  non-luminous  suns — 
that  is  to  say,  suns  whose  existence  we  determine  through 
the  movements  of  others,  but  whose  luminosity  is  not  suffi 
cient  to  impress  us.  Are  these  suns  invisible  merely  on 
account  of  the  length  of  time  elapsed  since  their  discharge 
of  a  planet  ?  And  yet  again  : — may  we  not — at  least  in 
certain  cases — account  for  the  sudden  appearances  of  suns 
where  none  had  been  previously  suspected,  by  the  hypo 
thesis  that,  having  rolled  with  encrusted  surfaces  through 
out  the  few  thousand  years  of  our  astronomical  history, 
each  of  these  suns,  in  whirling  off  a  new  secondary,  has  at 
length  been  enabled  to  display  the  glories  of  its  still  incan 
descent  interior  ? — To  the  well-ascertained  fact  of  the  pro 
portional  increase  of  heat  as  we  descend  into  the  Earth,  I 
need  of  course,  do  nothing  more  than  refer  : — it  comes  in 
the  strongest  possible  corroboration  of  all  that  I  have  said 
on  the  topic  now  at  issue. 

In  speaking,  not  long  ago,  of  the  repulsive  or  electrical 
influence,  I  remarked  that  "  the  important  phenomena  of 
vitality,  consciousness,  and  thought,  whether  we  observe 
them  generally  or  in  detail,  seem  to  proceed  at  least  in  the 
ratio  of  the  heterogeneous."*  I  mentioned,  too,  that  I  would 
recur  to  the  suggestion : — and  this  is  the  proper  point  at 
which  to  do  so.  Looking  at  the  matter,  first,  in  detail,  we 

*  Page  36. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  85 

perceive  that  not  merely  the  manifestation  of  vitality,  but 
its  importance,  consequence,  and  elevation  of  character, 
keep  pace,  very  closely,  with  the  heterogeneity,  or  com 
plexity,  of  the  animal  structure.  Looking  at  the  question, 
now,  in  its  generality,  and  referring  to  the  first  movements 
of  the  atoms  towards  mass-constitution,  we  find  that  hete- 
rogeneousness,  brought  about  directly  through  condensa 
tion,  is  proportional  with  it  forever.  We  thus  reach  the 
proposition  that  the  importance  of  the  development  of  the 
terrestrial  vitality  proceeds  equably  with  the  terrestrial  con 
densation. 

Now  this  is  in  precise  accordance  with  what  we  know 
of  the  succession  of  animals  on  the  Earth.  As  it  has  pro 
ceeded  in  its  condensation,  superior  and  still  superior  races 
have  appeared.  Is  it  impossible  that  the  successive  geo 
logical  revolutions  which  have  attended,  at  least,  if  not  im 
mediately  caused,  these  successive  elevations  of  vitalic 
character — is  it  improbable  that  these  revolutions  have 
themselves  been  produced  by  the  successive  planetary  dis 
charges  from  the  Sun — in  other  words,  by  the  successive 
variations  in  the  solar  influence  on  the  Earth  ?  Were  this 
idea  tenable,  we  should  not  be  unwarranted  in  the  fancy 
that  the  discharge  of  yet  a  new  planet,  interior  to  Mer 
cury,  may  give  rise  to  yet  a  new  modification  of  the  ter 
restrial  surface — a  modification  from  which  may  spring  a 
race  both  materially  and  spiritually  superior  to  Man.  These 
thoughts  impress  me  with  all  the  force  of  truth — but  I  throw 
them  out,  of  course,  merely  in  their  obvious  character  of 
suggestion. 

The  Nebular  Theory  of  Laplace  has  lately  received  far 


86  EUIIEKA. 


more  confirmation  than  it  needed,  at  the  hands  of  the  phi 
losopher,  Compte.  These  two  have  thus  together  shown — 
not,  to  be  sure,  that  Matter  at  any  period  actually  existed 
as  described,  in  a  state  of  nebular  diffusion,  but  that,  ad 
mitting  it  so  to  have  existed  throughout  the  space  and  much 
beyond  the  space  now  occupied  by  our  solar  system,  and  to 
have  commenced  a  movement  towards  a  centre — it  must 
gradually  have  assumed  the  various  forms  and  motions 
which  are  now  seen,  in  that  system,  to  obtain.  A  demon 
stration  such  as  this — a  dynamical  and  mathematical  dem 
onstration,  as  far  as  demonstration  can  be — unquestionable 
and  unquestioned — unless,  indeed,  by  that  unprofitable  and 
disreputable  tribe,  the  professional  questioners — the  mere 
madmen  who  deny  the  Newtonian  law  of  Gravity  on 
which  the  results  of  the  French  mathematicians  are  based 
— a  demonstration,  I  say,  such  as  this,  would  to  most  intel 
lects  be  conclusive — and  I  confess  that  it  is  so  to  mine — of 
the  validity  of  the  nebular  hypothesis  upon  which  the  de 
monstration  depends. 

That  the  demonstration  does  not  prove  the  hypothesis, 
according  to  the  common  understanding  of  the  word 
"  proof,"  I  admit,  of  course.  To  show  that  certain  existing 
results — that  certain  established  facts — may  be,  even  mathe 
matically,  accounted  for  by  the  assumption  of  a  certain  hy 
pothesis,  is  by  no  means  to  establish  the  hypothesis  itself. 
In  other  words  : — to  show  that,  certain  data  being  given,  a 
certain  existing  result  might,  or  even  must,  have  ensued^ 
will  fail  to  prove  that  this  result  did  ensue,  from  the  data, 
until  such  time  as  it  shall  be  also  shown  that  there  are,  and 
can  be,  no  other  data  from  which  the  result  in  question 


THE    UNIVERSE.  87 

might  equally  have  ensued.  But,  in  the  case  now  dis 
cussed,  although  all  must  admit  the  deficiency  of  what  we 
are  in  the  habit  of  terming  "  proof,"  still  there  are  many 
intellects,  and  those  of  the  loftiest  order,  to  which  no  proof 
could  bring  one  iota  of  additional  conviction.  Without 
going  into  details  which  might  impinge  upon  the  Cloud- Land 
of  Metaphysics,  I  may  as  well  here  observe  that  the  force 
of  conviction,  in  cases  such  as  this,  will  always,  with  the 
right-thinking,  be  proportional  to  the  amount  of  complexity 
intervening  between  the  hypothesis  and  the  result.  To  be 
less  abstract : — The  greatness  of  the  complexity  found  ex 
isting  among  cosmical  conditions,  by  rendering  great  in 
the  same  proportion  the  difficulty  of  accounting  for  all 
these  conditions  at  once,  strengthens,  also  in  the  same  pro 
portion,  our  faith  in  that  hypothesis  which  does,  in  such 
manner,  satisfactorily  account  for  them  : — and  as  no  com 
plexity  can  well  be  conceived  greater  than  that  of  the  as 
tronomical  conditions,  so  no  conviction  can  be  stronger — 
to  my  mind  at  least — than  that  with  which  I  am  impressed 
by  an  hypothesis  that  not  only  reconciles  these  conditions, 
with  mathematical  accuracy,  and  reduces  them  into  a  con 
sistent  and  intelligible  whole,  but  is,  at  the  same  time,  the 
sole  hypothesis  by  means  of  which  the  human  intellect  has 
been  ever  enabled  to  account  for  them  at  all. 

A  most  unfounded  opinion  has  become  latterly  current 
in  gossiping  and  even  in  scientific  circles — the  opinion  that 
.  the  so-called  Nebular  Cosmogony  has  been  overthrown. 
This  fancy  has  arisen  from  the  report  of  late  observations 
made,  among  what  hitherto  have  been  termed  the  "  nebulae," 
through  the  large  telescope  of  Cincinnati,  and  the  world- 


88  'EUREKA. 


renowned  instrument  of  Lord  Rosse.  Certain  spots  in  the 
firmament  which  presented,  even  to  the  most  powerful  of 
the  old  telescopes,  the  appearance  of  nebulosity,  or  haze, 
had  been  regarded  for  a  long  time  as  confirming  the  theory 
of  Laplace.  They  were  looked  upon  as  stars  in  that  very 
process  of  condensation  which  I  have  been  attempting  to 
describe.  Thus  it  was  supposed  that  we  "  had  ocular  evi 
dence  " — an  evidence,  by  the  way,  which  has  always  been 
found  very  questionable — of  the  truth  of  the  hypothesis  ; 
and,  although  certain  telescopic  improvements,  every  now 
and  then,  enabled  us  to  perceive  that  a  spot,  here  and  there, 
which  we  had  been  classing  among  the  nebulae,  was,  in  fact, 
but  a  cluster  of  stars  deriving  its  nebular  character  only 
from  its  immensity  of  distance — still  it  was  thought  that  no 
doubt  could  exist  as  to  the  actual  nebulosity  of  numerous 
other  masses,  the  strong-holds  of  the  nebulists,  bidding  de 
fiance  to  every  effort  at  segregation.  Of  these  latter  the 
most  interesting  was  the  great  "  nebulas  "  in  the  constella 
tion  Orion : — but  this,  with  innumerable  other  miscalled 
"  nebulae/'  when  viewed  through  the  magnificent  modern 
telescopes,  has  become  resolved  into  a  simple  collection  of 
stars.  Now  this  fact  has  been  very  generally  understood 
as  conclusive  against  the  Nebular  Hypothesis  of  Laplace ; 
and,  on  announcement  of  the  discoveries  in  question,  the 
most  enthusiastic  defender  and  most  eloquent  popularizer  of 
the  theory,  Dr.  Nichol,  went  so  far  as  to  "  admit  the  neces 
sity  of  abandoning  "  an  idea  which  had  formed  the  material 
of  his  most  praiseworthy  book.* 

*  "  Views  of  the  Architecture  of  the  Heavens."     A  letter,  purporting  to  be 
from  Dr.  Nichol  to  a  friend  in  America,  went  the  rounds  of  our  newspapers, 


THE     UNIVERSE.  89 

Many  of  my  readers  will  no  doubt  be  inclined  to  say 
that  the  result  of  these  new  investigations  has  at  least  a 
strong  tendency  to  overthrow  the  hypothesis  ;  while  some 
of  them,  more  thoughtful,  will  suggest  that,  although  the 
theory  is  by  no  means  disproved  through  the  segregation  of 
the  particular  "  nebulaB  "  alluded  to,  still  a  failure  to  segre 
gate  them,  with  such  telescopes,  might  well  have  been  un 
derstood  as  a  triumphant  corroboration  of  the  theory  : — and 
this  latter  class  will  be  surprised,  perhaps,  to  hear  me  say 
that  even  with  them  I  disagree.  If  the  propositions  of  this 
Discourse  have  been  comprehended,  it  will  be  seen  that,  in 
my  view,  a  failure  to  segregate  the  "  nebula?  "  would  have 
tended  to  the  refutation,  rather  than  to  the  confirmation,  of 
the  Nebular  Hypothesis. 

Let  me  explain  : — The  Newtonian  Law  of  Gravity  we 
may,  of  course,  assume  as  demonstrated.  This  law,  it  will 
be  remembered,  I  have  referred  to  the  reaction  of  the  first 
Divine  Act — to  the  reaction  of  an  exercise  of  the  Divine 
Volition  temporarily  overcoming  a  difficulty.  This  diffi 
culty  is  that  of  forcing  the  normal  into  the  abnormal — of 
impelling  that  whose  originality,  and  therefore  whose  right 
ful  condition,  was  One,  to  take  upon  itself  the  wrongful  con 
dition  of  Many.  It  is  only  by  conceiving  this  difficulty  as 
temporarily  overcome,  that  we  can  comprehend  a  reaction. 

about  two  years  ago,  I  think,  admitting  "  the  necessity"  to  which  I  refer.  In 
a  subsequent  Lecture,  however,  Dr.  N.  appears  in  some  manner  to  have  gotten 
the  better  of  the  necessity,  and  does  not  quite  renounce  the  theory,  although  he 
seems  to  wish  that  he  could  sneer  at  it  as  "  a  purely  hypothetical  one."  What 
else  was  the  Law  of  Gravity  before  the  Maskelyne  experiments  1  and  who 
questioned  the  Law  of  Gravity,  even  then  1 


90  EUREKA. 


There  could  have  been  no  reaction  had  the  act  been  infinitely 
continued.  So  long  as  the  act  lasted,  no  reaction,  of 
course,  could  commence ;  in  other  words,  no  gravitation 
could  take  place — for  we  have  considered  the  one  as  but 
the  manifestation  of  the  other.  But  gravitation  has  taken 
place  ;  therefore  the  act  of  Creation  has  ceased  :  and  gravi 
tation  has  long  ago  taken  place  ;  therefore  the  act  of  Crea 
tion  has  long  ago  ceased.  We  can  no  more  expect,  then, 
to  observe  the  primary  processes  of  Creation ;  and  to  these 
primary  processes  the  condition  of  nebulosity  has  already 
been  explained  to  belong. 

Through  what  we  know  of  the  propagation  of  light,  we 
have  direct  proof  that  the  more  remote  of  the  stars  have 
existed,  under. the  forms  in  which  we  now  see  them,  for  an 
inconceivable  number  of  years.  So  far  back  at  least,  then, 
as  the  period  when  these  stars  underwent  condensation, 
must  have  been  the  epoch  at  which  the  mass-constitutive 
processes  began.  That  we  may  conceive  these  processes, 
then,  as  still  going  on  in  the  case  of  certain  "  nebulae," 
while  in  all  other  cases  we  find  them  thoroughly  at  an  end, 
we  are  forced  into  assumptions  for  which  we  have  really 
no  basis  whatever — we  have  to  thrust  in,  again,  upon  the  re 
volting  Reason,  the  blasphemous  idea  of  special  interposition 
— we  have  to  suppose  that,  in  the  particular  instances  of  these 
"  nebulas,"  an  unerring  God  found  it  necessary  to  introduce 
certain  supplementary  regulations — certain  improvements 
of  the  general  law — certain  retouchings  and  emendations, 
in  a  word,  which  had  the  effect  of  deferring  the  completion 
of  these  individual  stars  for  centuries  of  centuries  beyond 
the  asra  during  which  all  the  other  stellar  bodies  had  time, 


THE     UNIVERSE.  91 

not  only  to  be  fully  constituted,  but  to  grow  hoary  with  an 
unspeakable  old  age. 

Of  course,  it  will  be  immediately  objected  that  since  the 
light  by  which  we  recognize  the  nebulae  now,  must  be 
merely  that  which  left  their  surfaces  a  vast  number  of  years 
ago,  the  processes  at  present  observed,  or  supposed  to  be 
observed,  are,  in  fact,  not  processes  now  actually  going  on, 
but  the  phantoms  of  processes  completed  long  in  the  Past 
— just  as  I  maintain  all  these  mass-constitutive  processes 
must  have  been. 

To  this  I  reply  that  neither  is  the  now-observed  con 
dition  of  the  condensed  stars  their  actual  condition,  but  a 
condition  completed  long  in  the  Past ;  so  that  my  argument 
drawn  from  the  relative  condition  of  the  stars  and  the 
"  nebulas/'  is  in  no  manner  disturbed.  Moreover,  those 
who  maintain  the  existence  of  nebulae,  do  not  refer  the 
nebulosity  to  extreme  distance ;  they  declare  it  a  real  and 
not  merely  a  perspective  nebulosity.  That  we  may  con 
ceive,  indeed,  a  nebular  mass  as  visible  at  all,  we  must  con 
ceive  it  as  very  near  us  in  comparison  with  the  condensed 
stars  brought  into  view  by  the  modern  telescopes.  In 
maintaining  the  appearances  in  question,  then,  to  be  really 
nebulous,  we  maintain  their  comparative  vicinity  to  our 
point  of  view.  Thus,  their  condition,  as  we  see  them  now, 
must  be  referred  to  an  epoch  far  less  remote  than  that  to 
which  we  may  refer  the  now-observed  condition  of  at  least 
the  majority  of  the  stars. — In  a  word,  should  Astronomy 
ever  demonstrate  a  "  nebula,"  in  the  sense  at  present  in 
tended,  I  should  consider  the  Nebular  Cosmogony — not,  in 
deed,  as  corroborated  by  the  demonstration — but  as  thereby 
irretrievably  overthrown. 


92  EUJIEKA. 


By  way,  however,  of  rendering  unto  Caesar  no  more 
than  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  let  me  here  remark  that 
the  assumption  of  the  hypothesis  which  led  him  to  so  glo 
rious  a  result,  seems  to  have  been  suggested  to  Laplace  in 
great  measure  by  a  misconception — by  the  very  misconcep 
tion  of  which  we  have  just  been  speaking — by  the  gen 
erally  prevalent  misunderstanding  of  the  character  of  the 
nebulae,  so  mis-named.  These  he  supposed  to  be,  in  reality, 
what  their  designation  implies.  The  fact  is,  this  great  man 
had,  very  properly,  an  inferior  faith  in  his  own  merely  per 
ceptive  powers.  In  respect,  therefore,  to  the  actual  exist 
ence  of  nebulae — an  existence  so  confidently  maintained  by 
his  telescopic  contemporaries — he  depended  less  upon  what 
he  saw  than  upon  what  he  heard. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  only  valid  objections  to  his 
theory,  are  those  made  to  its  hypothesis  as  such — to  what 
suggested  it — not  to  what  it  suggests  ;  to  its  propositions 
rather  than  to  its  results.  His  most  unwarranted  assump 
tion  was  that  of  giving  the  atoms  a  movement  towards  a 
centre,  in  the  very  face  of  his  evident  understanding  that 
these  atoms,  in  unlimited  succession,  extended  throughout 
the  Universal  space.  I  have  already  shown  that,  under 
such  circumstances,  there  could  have  occurred  no  move 
ment  at  all ;  and  Laplace,  consequently,  assumed  one  on 
no  more  philosophical  ground  than  that  something  of  the 
kind  was  necessary  for  the  establishment  of  what  he  in 
tended  to  establish. 

His  original  idea  seems  to  have  been  a  compound  of 
the  true  Epicurean  atoms  with  the  false  nebulae  of  his  con 
temporaries  ;  and  thus  his  theory  presents  us  with  the  sin- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  93 

gular  anomaly  of  absolute  truth  deduced,  as  a  mathematical 
result,  from  a  hybrid  datum  of  ancient  imagination  inter- 
tangled  with  modern  inacumen.  Laplace's  real  strength 
lay,  in  fact,  in  an  almost  miraculous  mathematical  instinct : 
— on  this  he  relied  ;  and  in  no  instance  did  it  fail  or  deceive 
him  : — in  the  case  of  the  Nebular  Cosmogony,  it  led  him, 
blindfolded,  through  a  labyrinth  of  Error,  into  one  of  the 
most  luminous  and  stupendous  temples  of  Truth. 

Let  us  now  fancy,  for  the  moment,  that  the  ring  first 
thrown  off  by  the  Sun — that  is  to  say,  the  ring  whose 
breaking-up  constituted  Neptune — did  not,  in  fact,  break 
up  until  the  throwing-off  of  the  ring  out  of  which  Uranus 
arose  ;  that  this  latter  ring,  again,  remained  perfect  until 
the  discharge  of  that  out  of  which  sprang  Saturn  ;  that  this 
latter,  again,  remained  entire  until  the  discharge  of  that 
from  which  originated  Jupiter — and  so  on.  Let  us  imagine, 
in  a  word,  that  no  dissolution  occurred  among  the  rings 
until  the  final  rejection  of  that  which  gave  birth  to  Mer 
cury.  We  thus  paint  to  the  eye  of  the  mind  a  series  of 
coexistent  concentric  circles ;  and  looking  as  well  at  them 
as  at  the  processes  by  which,  according  to  Laplace's  hypo 
thesis,  they  were  constructed,  we  perceive  at  once  a  very 
singular  analogy  with  the  atomic  strata  and  the  process  of 
the  original  irradiation  as  I  have  described  it.  Is  it  impos 
sible  that,  on  measuring  the  forces,  respectively,  by  which 
each  successive  planetary  circle  was  thrown  off — that  is  to 
say,  on  measuring  the  successive  excesses  of  rotation  over 
gravitation  which  occasioned  the  successive  discharges — 
we  should  find  the  analogy  in  question  more  decidedly  con 
firmed  ?  Is  it  improbable  that  we  should  discover  these 


94  EUREKA. 


forces  to  have  varied — as  in  the  original  radiation — pro 
portionally  to  the  squares  of  the  distances  ? 

Our  solar  system,  consisting,  in  chief,  of  one  sun,  with 
sixteen  planets  certainly,  and  possibly  a  few  more,  revolv 
ing  about  it  at  various  distances,  and  attended  by  seventeen 
moons  assuredly,  but  very  probably  by  several  others — is 
now  to  be  considered  as  an  example  of  the  innumerable 
agglomerations  which  proceeded  to  take  place  throughout 
the  Universal  Sphere  of  atoms  on  withdrawal  of  the  Divine 
Volition.  I  mean  to  say  that  our  solar  system  is  to  be  un 
derstood  as  affording  a  generic  instance  of  these  agglomera 
tions,  or,  more  correctly,  of  the  ulterior  conditions  at  which 
they  arrived.  If  we  keep  our  attention  fixed  on  the  idea 
of  the  utmost  possible  Relation  as  the  Omnipotent  design, 
and  on  the  precautions  taken  to  accomplish  it  through  dif 
ference  of  form,  among  the  original  atoms,  and  particular 
inequidistance,  we  shall  find  it  impossible  to  suppose  for  a 
moment  that  even  any  two  of  the  incipient  agglomerations 
reached  precisely  the  same  result  in  the  end.  We  shall 
rather  be  inclined  to  think  that  no  two  stellar  bodies  in  the 
Universe — whether  suns,  planets  or  moons — are  particu 
larly,  while  all  are  generally,  similar.  Still  less,  then,  can 
we  imagine  any  two  assemblages  of  such  bodies — any  two 
"systems" — as  having  more  than  a  general  resemblance.* 
Our  telescopes,  at  this  point,  thoroughly  confirm  our  deduc- 

*  It  is  not  impossible  that  some  unlooked-for  optical  improvement  may  dis 
close  to  us,  among  innumerable  varieties  of  systems,  a  luminous  sun,  encircled 
by  luminous  and  non-luminous  rings,  within  and  without  and  between  which, 
revolve  luminous  and  non-luminous  planets,  attended  by  moons  having  moons 
— and  even  these  latter  again  having  moons. 


THE    UNIVERSE.  95 

tions.  Taking  our  own  solar  system,  then,  as  merely  a 
loose  or  general  type  of  all,  we  have  so  far  proceeded  in 
our  subject  as  to  survey  the  Universe  under  the  aspect  of  a 
spherical  space,  throughout  which,  dispersed  with  merely 
general  equability,  exist  a  number  of  but  generally  similar 
systems. 

Let  us  now,  expanding  our  conceptions,  look  upon  each 
of  these  systems  as  in  itself  an  atom  ;  which  in  fact  it  is, 
when  we  consider  it  as  but  one  of  the  countless  myriads  of 
systems  which  constitute  the  Universe.  Regarding  all, 
then,  as  but  colossal  atoms,  each  with  the  same  ineradicable 
tendency  to  Unity  which  characterizes  the  actual  atoms  of 
which  it  consists — we  enter  at  once  upon  a  new  order  of 
aggregations.  The  smaller  systems,  in  the  vicinity  of  a 
larger  one,  would,  inevitably,  be  drawrn  into  still  closer 
vicinity.  A  thousand  would  assemble  here  ;  a  million  there 
— perhaps  here,  again,  even  a  billion — leaving,  thus,  immea 
surable  vacancies  in  space.  And  if,  now,  it  be  demanded 
why,  in  the  case  of  these  systems — of  these  merely  Titanic 
atoms — 1  speak,  simply,  of  an  "  assemblage/'  and  not,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  actual  atoms,  of  a  more  or  less  consolidated 
agglomeration :— if  it  be  asked,  for  instance,  why  I  do  not 
carry  what  I  suggest  to  its  legitimate  conclusion,  and  de 
scribe,  at  once,  these  assemblages  of  system-atoms  as  rush 
ing  to  consolidation  in  spheres — as  each  becoming  condensed 
into  one  magnificent  sun — my  reply  is  that  p&'kovia  ravra — 
I  am  but  pausing,  for  a  moment,  on  the  awful  threshold  of 
the  Future.  For  the  present,  calling  these  assemblages 
"  clusters,"  we  see  them  in  the  incipient  stages  of  their 
consolidation.  Their  absolute  consolidation  is  to  come. 


96  EUREKA. 


We  have  now  reached  a  point  from  which  we  behold 
the  Universe  as  a  spherical  space,  interspersed,  unequally, 
with  clusters.  It  will  be  noticed  that  I  here  prefer  the  ad 
verb  "  unequably  "  to  the  phrase  "  with  a  merely  general 
equability,"  employed  before.  It  is  evident,  in  fact,  that 
the  equability  of  distribution  will  diminish  in  the  ratio  of 
the  agglomerative  processes — that  is  to  say,  as  the  things 
distributed  diminish  in  number.  Thus  the  increase  of  in- 
equability — an  increase  which  must  continue  until,  sooner 
or  later,  an  epoch  will  arrive  at  which  the  largest  agglome 
ration  will  absorb  all  the  others — should  be  viewed  as, 
simply,  a  corroborative  indication  of  the  tendency  to  One. 

And  here,  at  length,  it  seems  proper  to  inquire  whether 
the  ascertained  facts  of  Astronomy  confirm  the  general 
arrangement  which  I  have  thus,  deductively,  assigned  to 
the  Heavens.  Thoroughly,  they  do.  Telescopic  observa 
tion,  guided  by  the  laws  of  perspective,  enables  us  to  under 
stand  that  the  perceptible  Universe  exists  as  a  cluster  of 
clusters,  irregularly  disposed. 

The  "  clusters "  of  which  this  Universal  "  cluster  of 
clusters  "  consists,  are  merely  what  we  have  been  in  the 
practice  of  designating  "  nebulae  " — and,  of  these  "  nebulae," 
one  is  of  paramount  interest  to  mankind.  I  allude  to  the 
Galaxy,  or  Milky  Way.  This  interests  us,  first  and  most 
obviously,  on  account  of  its  great  superiority  in  apparent 
size,  not  only  to  any  one  other  cluster  in  the  firmament,  but 
to  all  the  other  clusters  taken  together.  The  largest  of 
these  latter  occupies  a  mere  point,  comparatively,  and  is 
distinctly  seen  only  with  the  aid  of  a  telescope.  The  Gal 
axy  sweeps  throughout  the  Heaven  and  is  brilliantly  visible 


THE     UNIVERSE.  97 

to  the  naked  eye.  But  it  interests  man  chiefly,  although 
less  immediately,  on  account  of  its  being  his  home  ;  the 
home  of  the  Earth  on  which  he  exists  ;  the  home  of  the 
Sun  about  which  this  Earth  revolves  ;  the  home  of  that 
"  system  "  of  orbs  of  which  the  Sun  is  the  centre  and  pri 
mary — the  Earth  one  of  sixteen  secondaries,  or  planets — 
the  Moon  one  of  seventeen  tertiaries,  or  satellites.  The 
Galaxy,  let  me  repeat,  is  but  one  of  the  clusters  which  I 
have  been  describing — but  one  of  the  mis-called  "  nebula  " 
revealed  to  us — by  the  telescope  alone,  sometimes — as  faint 
hazy  spots  in  various  quarters  of  the  sky.  We  have  no 
reason  to  suppose  the  Milky  Way  really  more  extensive 
than  the  least  of  these  "  nebulae."  Its  vast  superiority  in 
size  is  but  an  apparent  superiority  arising  from  our  position 
in  regard  to  it — that  is  to  say,  from  our  position  in  its  midst. 
However  strange  the  assertion  may  at  first  appear  to  those 
unversed  in  Astronomy,  still  the  astronomer  himself  has  no 
hesitation  in  asserting  that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  that  in 
conceivable  host  of  stars — of  suns — of  systems — which  con 
stitute  the  Galaxy.  Moreover,  not  only  have  we — not  only 
has  our  Sun  a  right  to  claim  the  Galaxy  as  its  own  especial 
cluster,  but,  with  slight  reservation,  it  may  be  said  that  all 
the  distinctly  visible  stars  of  the  firmament — all  the  stars 
visible  to  the  naked  eye — have  equally  a  right  to  claim  it 
as  their  own. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  misconception  in  respect 
to  the  shape  of  the  Galaxy ;  which,  in  nearly  all  our  astro 
nomical  treatises,  is  said  to  resemble  that  of  a  capital  Y. 
The  cluster  in  question  has,  in  reality,  a  certain  general — 
very  general  resemblance  to  the  planet  Saturn,  with  its 

5 


98  EUREKA. 


encompassing  triple  ring.  Instead  of  the  solid  orb  of  that 
planet,  however,  we  must  picture  to  ourselves  a  lenticular 
star-island,  or  collection  of  stars  ;  our  Sun  lying  excentric- 
ally — near  the  shore  of  the  island — on  that  side  of  it  which 
is  nearest  the  constellation  of  the  Cross  and  farthest  from 
that  of  Cassiopeia.  The  surrounding  'ring,  where  it  ap 
proaches  our  position,  has  in  it  a  longitudinal  gash,  which 
does,  in  fact,  cause  the  ring,  in  our  vicinity,  to  assume, 
loosely,  the  appearance  of  a  capital  Y. 

We  must  not  fall  into  the  error,  however,  of  conceiving 
the  somewhat  indefinite  girdle  as  at  all  remote,  compara 
tively  speaking,  from  the  also  indefinite  lenticular  cluster 
which  it  surrounds  ;  and  thus,  for  mere  purpose  of  expla 
nation,  we  may  speak  of  our  Sun  as  actually  situated  at 
that  point  of  the  Y  where  its  three  component  lines  unite  ; 
and,  conceiving  this  letter  to  be  of  a  certain  solidity — of  a 
certain  thickness,  very  trivial  in  comparison  with  its  length 
— we  may  even  speak  of  our  position  as  in  the  middle  of 
this  thickness.  Fancying  ourselves  thus  placed,  we  shall 
no  longer  find  difficulty  in  accounting  for  the  phenomena 
presented — which  are  perspective  altogether.  When  we 
look  upward  or  downward — that  is  to  say,  when  we  cast 
our  eyes  in  the  direction  of  the  letter's  thickness — we  look 
through  fewer  stars  than  when  we  cast  them  in  the  direction 
of  its  length,  or  along  either  of  the  three  component  lines. 
Of  course,  in  the  former  case,  the  stars  appear  scattered — 
in  the  latter,  crowded. — To  reverse  this  explanation  : — An 
inhabitant  of  the  Earth,  when  looking,  as  we  commonly  ex 
press  ourselves,  at  the  Galaxy,  is  then  beholding  it  in  some 
of  the  directions  of  its  length — is  looking  along  the  lines  of 


THE    UNIVERSE.  99 

the  Y — but  when,  looking  out  into  the  general  Heaven,  he 
turns  his  eyes  from  the  Galaxy,  he  is  then  surveying  it  in 
the  direction  of  the  letter's  thickness  ;  and  on  this  account 
the  stars  seem  to  him  scattered  ;  while,  in  fact,  they  are  as 
close  together,  on  an  average,  as  in  the  mass  of  the  cluster. 
No  consideration  could  be  better  adapted  to  convey  an  idea 
of  this  cluster's  stupendous  extent. 

If,  with  a  telescope  of  high  space-penetrating  power,  we 
carefully  inspect  the  firmament,  we  shall  become  aware  of 
a  belt  of  clusters — of  what  we  have  hitherto  called  "  nebu 
lae  " — a  band,  of  varying  breadth,  stretching  from  horizon 
to  horizon,  at  right  angles  to  the  general  course  of  the  Milky 
Way.  This  band  is  the  ultimate  cluster  of  clusters.  This 
belt  is  The  Universe.  Our  Galaxy  is  but  one,  and  perhaps 
one  of  the  most  inconsiderable,  of  the  clusters  which  go  to 
the  constitution  of  this  ultimate,  Universal  belt  or  band. 
The  appearance  of  this  cluster  of  clusters,  to  our  eyes,  as  a 
belt  or  band,  is  altogether  a  perspective  phenomenon  of  the 
same  character  as  that  which  causes  us  to  behold  our  own 
individual  and  roughly -spherical  cluster,  the  Galaxy,  under 
guise  also  of  a  belt,  traversing  the  Heavens  at  right  angles 
to  the  Universal  one.  The  shape  of  the  all-inclusive  clus 
ter  is,  of  course  generally,  that  of  each  individual  cluster 
which  it  includes.  Just  as  the  scattered  stars  which,  on 
looking  from  the  Galaxy,  we  see  in  the  general  sky,  are,  in 
fact,  but  a  portion  of  that  Galaxy  itself,  and  as  closely  in 
termingled  with  it  as  any  of  the  telescopic  points  in  what 
seems  the  densest  portion  of  its  mass — so  are  the  scattered 
"  nebulas  "  which,  on  casting  our  eyes  from  the  Universal 
belt,  we  perceive  at  all  points  of  the  firmament — so,  I  say, 


100  EUREKA. 


are  these  scattered  "  nebulae "  to  be  understood  as  only 
perspectively  scattered,  and  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  one 
supreme  and  Universal  sphere. 

f"  No  astronomical  fallacy  is  more  untenable,  and  none 
has  been  more  pertinaciously  adhered  to,  than  that  of  the 
absolute  illimitation  of  the  Universe  of  Stars.  The  reasons 
for  limitation,  as  I  have  already  assigned  them,  a  priori, 
seem  to  me  unanswerable  ;  but,  not  to  speak  of  these,  obser 
vation  assures  us  that  there  is,  in  numerous  directions  around 
us,  certainly,  if  not  in  all,  a  positive  limit — or,  at  the  very 
least,  affords  us  no  basis  whatever  for  thinking  otherwise. 
Were  the  succession  of  stars  endless,  then  the  background 
of  the  sky  would  present  us  an  uniform  luminosity,  like  that 
displayed  by  the  Galaxy — since  there  could  be  absolutely  no 
point,  in  all  that  background,  at  which  would  not  exist  a 
star.  The  only  mode,  therefore,  in  which,  under  such  a 
state  of  affairs,  we  could  comprehend  the  voids  which  our 
telescopes  find  in  innumerable  directions,  would  be  by  sup 
posing  the  distance  of  the  invisible  background  so  immense 
that  no  ray  from  it  has  yet  been  able  to  reach  us  at  all. 
That  this  may  be  so,  who  shall  venture  to  deny  ?  I  main 
tain,  simply,  that  we  have  not  even  the  shadow  of  a  reason 
for  believing  that  it  is  so. 

When  speaking  of  the  vulgar  propensity  to  regard  all 
bodies  on  the  Earth  as  tending  merely  to  the  Earth's  centre, 
I  observed  that,  "with  certain  exceptions  to  be  specified 
hereafter,  every  body  on  the  Earth  tended  not  only  to  the 
Earth's  centre,  but  in  every  conceivable  direction  besides/'* 
The  "  exceptions  "  refer  to  those  frequent  gaps  in  the  Hea- 

*  Page  62. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  101 

yens,  where  our  utmost  scrutiny  can  detect  not  only  no 
stellar  bodies,  but  no  indications  of  their  existence  : — where 
yawning  chasms,  blacker  than  Erebus,  seem  to  afford  us 
glimpses,  through  the  boundary  walls  of  the  Universe  of 
Stars,  into  the  illimitable  Universe  of  Vacancy,  beyond. 
Now  as  any  body,  existing  on  the  Earth,  chances  to  pass, 
either  through  its  own  movement  or  the  Earth's,  into  a  line 
with  any  one  of  these  voids,  or  cosmical  abysses,  it  clearly 
is  no  longer  attracted  in  the  direction  of  that  void,  and 
for  the  moment,  consequently,  is  "  heavier "  than  at  any 
period,  either  after  or  before.  Independently  of  the  con 
sideration  of  these  voids,  however,  and  looking  only  at  the 
generally  unequable  distribution  of  the  stars,  we  see  that 
the  absolute  tendency  of  bodies  on  the  Earth  to  the  Earth's 
centre,  is  in  a  state  of  perpetual  variation. 

We  comprehend,  then,  the  insulation  of  our  Universe. 
We  perceive  the  isolation  of  that — of  all  that  which  we 
grasp  with  the  senses.  We  know  that  there  exists  one 
cluster  of  clusters — a  collection  around  which,  on  all  sides, 
extend  the  immeasurable  wildernesses  of  a  Space  to  all  hu 
man  perception  untenanted.  But  because  upon  the  confines 
of  this  Universe  of  Stars  we  are  compelled  to  pause,  through 
want  of  farther  evidence  from  the  senses,  is  it  right  to  con 
clude  that,  in  fact,  there  is  no  material  point  beyond  that 
which  we  have  thus  been  permitted  to  attain  ?  Have  we, 
or  have  we  not,  an  analogical  right  to  the  inference  that 
this  perceptible  Universe — that  this  cluster  of  clusters — is 
but  one  of  a  series  of  clusters  of  clusters,  the  rest  of  which 
are  invisible  through  distance — through  the  diffusion  of  their 
light  being  so  excessive,  ere  it  reaches  us,  as  not  to  produce 


102  EUREKA. 


upon  our  retinas  a  light-impression — or  from  there  being  no 
such  emanation  as  light  at  all,  in  these  unspeakably  distant 
worlds — or,  lastly,  from  the  mere  interval  being  so  vast,  that 
the  electric  tidings  of  their  presence  in  Space,  have  not  yet 
— through  the  lapsing  myriads  of  years — been  enabled  to 
traverse  that  interval  ? 

Have  we  any  right  to  inferences — have  we  any  ground 
whatever  for  visions  such  as  these  ?  If  we  have  a  right  to 
them  in  any  degree,  we  have  a  right  to  their  infinite  exten 
sion. 

The  human  brain  has  obviously  a  leaning  to  the  "  Infi 
nite,"  and  fondles  the  phantom  of  the  idea.  It  seems  to 
long  with  a  passionate  fervor  for  this  impossible  conception, 
with  the  hope  of  intellectually  believing  it  when  conceived. 
What  is  general  among  the  whole  race  of  Man,  of  course 
no  individual  of  that  race  can  be  warranted  in  considering 
abnormal ;  nevertheless,  there  may  be  a  class  of  superior 
intelligences,  to  whom  the  human  bias  alluded  to  may  wear 
all  the  character  of  monomania. 

My  question,  however,  remains  unanswered  : — Have  we 
any  right  to  infer — let  us  say,  rather,  to  imagine — an  inter 
minable  succession  of  the" "  clusters  of  clusters,"  or  of  "  Uni 
verses  "  more  or  less  similar  ? 

I  reply  that  the  "  right,"  in  a  case  such  as  this,  depends 
absolutely  upon  the  hardihood  of  that  imagination  which 
ventures  to  claim  the  right.  Let  me  declare,  only,  that,  as 
an  individual,  I  myself  feel  impelled  to  the  fancy — without 
daring  to  call  it  more — that  there  does  exist  a  limitless  suc 
cession  of  Universes,  more  or  less  similar  to  that  of  which 
we  have  cognizance — to  that  of  which  alone  we  shall  ever 


THE     UNIVERSE.  103 

have  cognizance — at  the  very  least  until  the  return  of  our 
own  particular  Universe  into  Unity.  If  such  clusters  of 
clusters  exist,  however — and  they  do — it  is  abundantly  clear 
that,  having  had  no  part  in  our  origin,  they  have  no  portion 
in  our  laws.  They  neither  attract  us,  nor  we  them.  Their 
material — their  spirit  is  not  ours — is  not  that  which  obtains 
in  any  part  of  our  Universe.  They  could  not  impress  our 
senses  or  our  souls.  Among  them  and  us — considering  all, 
for  the  moment,  collectively — there  are  no  influences  in 
common.  Each  exists,  apart  and  independently,  in  the  bo 
som  of  its  proper  and  particular  God. 

In  the  conduct  of  this  Discourse,  I  am  aiming  less  at 
physical  than  at  metaphysical  order.  The  clearness  with 
which  even  material  phsenomena  are  presented  to  the  under 
standing,  depends  very  little,  I  have  long  since  learned  to 
perceive,  upon  a  merely  natural,  and  almost  altogether  upon 
a  moral,  arrangement.  If  then  I  seem  to  step  somewhat  too 
discursively  from  point  to  point  of  my  topic,  let  me  suggest 
that  I  do  so  in  the  hope  of  thus  the  better  keeping  unbroken 
that  chain  of  graduated  impression  by  which  alone  the  in 
tellect  of  Man  can  expect  to  encompass  the  grandeurs  of 
which  I  speak,  and,  in  their  majestic  totality,  to  comprehend 
them. 

80  far,  our  attention  has  been  directed,  almost  exclu 
sively,  to  a  general  and  relative  grouping  of  the  stellar 
bodies  in  space.  Of  specification  there  has  been  little ; 
and  whatever  ideas  of  quantity  have  been  conveyed — that 
is  to  say,  of  number,  magnitude,  and  distance — have  been 
conveyed  incidentally  and  by  way  of  preparation  for  more 
definitive  conceptions.  These  latter  let  us  now  attempt  to 
entertain. 


104  EUREKA. 


Our  solar  system,  as  has  been  already  mentioned,  con 
sists,  in  chief,  of  one  sun  and  sixteen  planets  certainly,  but 
in  all  probability  a  few  others,  revolving  around  it  as  a 
centre,  and  attended  by  seventeen  moons  of  which  we 
know,  with  possibly  several  more  of  which  as  yet  we  know 
nothing.  These  various  bodies  are  not  true  spheres,  but 
oblate  spheroids — spheres  flattened  at  the  poles  of  the  ima 
ginary  axes  about  which  they  rotate  : — the  flattening  being 
a  consequence  of  the  rotation.  Neither  is  the  Sun  abso 
lutely  the  centre  of  the  system  ;  for  this  Sun  itself,  with  all 
the  planets,  revolves  about  a  perpetually  shifting  point  of 
space,  which  is  the  system's  general  centre  of  gravity. 
Neither  are  we  to  consider  the  paths  through  which  these 
different  spheroids  move — the  moons  about  the  planets,  the 
planets  about  the  Sun,  or  the  Sun  about  the  common  cen 
tre — as  circles  in  an  accurate  sense.  They  are,  in  fact, 
ellipses — one  of  the  foci  being  the  point  about  which  the 
revolution  is  made.  An  ellipse  is  a  curve,  returning  into 
itself,  one  of  whose  diameters  is  longer  than  the  other.  In 
the  longer  diameter  are  two  points,  equidistant  from  the 
middle  of  the  line,  and  so  situated  otherwise  that  if,  from 
each  of  them  a  straight  line  be  drawn  to  any  one  point  of 
the  curve,  the  two  lines,  taken  together,  wrill  be  equal  to  the 
longer  diameter  itself.  Now  let  us  conceive  such  an  ellipse. 
At  one  of  the  points  mentioned,  which  are  the  foci,  let  us 
fasten  an  orange.  By  an  elastic  thread  let  us  connect  this 
orange  with  a  pea  ;  and  let  us  place  this  latter  on  the  cir 
cumference  of  the  ellipse.  Let  us  now  move  the  pea  con 
tinuously  around  the  orange — keeping  always  on  the  cir 
cumference  of  the  ellipse.  The  elastic  thread,  which,  of 


THE    UNIVERSE.  105 

course,  varies  in  length  as  we  move  the  pea,  will  form  what 
in  geometry  is  called  a  radius  vector.  Now,  if  the  orange 
be  understood  as  the  Sun,  and  the  pea  as  a  planet  revolving 
about  it,  then  the  revolution  should  be  made  at  such  a  rate 
— with  a  velocity  so  varying — that  the  radius  vector  may 
pass  over  equal  areas  of  space  in  equal  times.  The  pro 
gress  of  the  pea  should  be — in  other  words,  the  progress  of 
the  planet  is,  of  course, — slow  in  proportion  to  its  distance 
from  the  Sun — swift  in  proportion  to  its  proximity.  Those 
planets,  moreover,  move  the  more  slowly  which  are  the 
farther  from  the  Sun  ;  the  squares  of  their  periods  of  revo 
lution  having  the  same  proportion  to  each  other,  as  have 
to  each  other  the  cubes  of  their  mean  distances  from  the 
Sun. 

The  wonderfully  complex  laws  of  revolution  here  de 
scribed,  however,  are  not  to  be  understood  as  obtaining  in 
our  system  alone.  They  everywhere  prevail  where  Attrac 
tion  prevails.  They  control  the  Universe.  Every  shining 
speck  in  the  firmament  is,  no  doubt,  a  luminous  sun,  resem 
bling  our  own,  at  least  in  its  general  features,  and  having  in 
attendance  upon  it  a  greater  or  less  number  of  planets, 
greater  or  less,  whose  still  lingering  luminosity  is  not  suffi 
cient  to  render  them  visible  to  us  at  so  vast  a  distance,  but 
which,  nevertheless,  revolve,  moon-attended,  about  their 
starry  centres,  in  obedience  to  the  principles  just  detailed — 
in  obedience  to  the  three  omniprevalent  laws  of  revolution 
— the  three  immortal  laws  guessed  by  the  imaginative  Kep 
ler,  and  but  subsequently  demonstrated  and  accounted  for 
by  the  patient  and  mathematical  Newton.  Among  a  tribe 
of  philosophers  who  pride  themselves  excessively  upon 
6* 


106  EUREKA. 


matter-of-fact,  it  is  far  too  fashionable  to  sneer  at  all  specu 
lation  under  the  comprehensive  sobriquet,  "  guess-work." 
The  point  to  be  considered  is,  who  guesses.  In  guessing 
with  Plato,  we  spend  our  time  to  better  purpose,  now 
and  then,  than  in  hearkening  to  a  demonstration  by 
Alcmseon. 

In  many  works  on  Astronomy  I  find  it  distinctly  stated 
that  the  laws  of  Kepler  are  the  basis  of  the  great  principle, 
Gravitation.  This  idea  must  have  arisen  from  the  fact  that 
the  suggestion  of  these  laws  by  Kepler,  and  his  proving 
them  a  posteriori  to  have  an  actual  existence,  led  Newton 
to  account  for  them  by  the  hypothesis  of  Gravitation,  and, 
finally,  to  demonstrate  them  a  priori,  as  necessary  conse 
quences  of  the  hypothetical  principle.  Thus  so  far  from  the 
laws  of  Kepler  being  the  basis  of  Gravity,  Gravity  is  the 
basis  of  these  laws — as  it  is,  indeed,  of  all  the  laws  of  the 
material  Universe  which  are  not  referable  to  Repulsion 
alone. 

The  mean  distance  of  the  Earth  from  the  Moon — that 
is  to  say,  from  the  heavenly  body  in  our  closest  vicinity — 
is  237,000  miles.  Mercury,  the  planet  nearest  the  Sun,  is 
distant  from  him  37  millions  of  miles.  Venus,  the  next, 
revolves  at  a  distance  of  68  millions  : — the  Earth,  which 
comes  next,  at  a  distance  of  95  millions  : — Mars,  then,  at  a 
distance  of  144  millions.  Now  come  the  eight  Asteroids 
(Ceres,  Juno,  Vesta,  Pallas,  Astraa,.  Flora,  Iris,  and  Hebe) 
at  an  average  distance  of  about  250  millions.  Then  we 
have  Jupiter,  distant  490  millions  ;  then  Saturn,  900  mil 
lions  ;  then  Uranus,  19  hundred  millions ;  finally  Neptune; 
lately  discovered,  and  revolving  at  a  distance,  say  of  28 


THE    UNIVERSE.  107 

hundred  millions.  Leaving  Neptune  out  of  the  account — 
of  which  as  yet  we  know  little  accurately  and  which  is, 
possibly,  one  of  a  system  of  Asteroids — it  will  be  seen  that, 
within  certain  limits,  there  exists  an  order  of  interval 
among  the  planets.  Speaking  loosely,  we  may  say  that 
each  outer  planet  is  twice  as  far  from  the  Sun  as  is  the 
next  inner  one.  May  not  the  order  here  mentioned — may 
not  the  law  of  Bode — be  deduced  from  consideration  of 
the  analogy  suggested  by  me  as  having  place  between  the 
solar  discharge  of  rings  and  the  mode  of  the  atomic  irra 
diation  ? 

The  numbers  hurriedly  mentioned  in  this  summary  of 
distance,  it  is  folly  to  attempt  comprehending,  unless  in  the 
light  of  abstract  arithmetical  facts.  They  are  not  prac 
tically  tangible  ones.  They  convey  no  precise  ideas.  I 
have  stated  that  Neptune,  the  planet  farthest  from  the  Sun, 
revolves  about  him  at  a  distance  of  28  hundred  millions  of 
miles.  So  far  good  : — I  have  stated  a  mathematical  fact ; 
and,  without  comprehending  it  in  the  least,  we  may  put  it 
to  use — mathematically.  But  in  mentioning,  even,  that 
the  Moon  revolves  about  the  Earth  at  the  comparatively 
trifling  distance  of  237,000  miles,  I  entertained  no  expec 
tation  of  giving  any  one  to  understand — to  know — to  feel 
— how  far  from  the  Earth  the  Moon  actually  is.  237,000 
miles  !  There  are,  perhaps,  few  of  my  readers  who  have 
not  crossed  the  Atlantic  ocean  ;  yet  how  many  of  them 
have  a  distinct  idea  of  even  the  3,000  miles  intervening 
between  shor«  and  shore  ?  I  doubt,  indeed,  whether  the 
man  lives  who  can  force  into  his  brain  the  most  remote  con 
ception  of  the  interval  between  one  milestone  and  its  next 


108  EUREKA. 


neighbor  upon  the  turnpike.  We  are  in  some  measure 
aided,  however,  in  our  consideration  of  distance,  by  com 
bining  this  consideration  with  the  kindred  one  of  velocity. 
Sound  passes  through  1100  feet  of  space  in  a  second  of 
time.  Now  were  it  possible  for  an  inhabitant  of  the  Earth 
to  see  the  flash  of  a  cannon  discharged  in  the  Moon,  and 
to  hear  the  report,  he  would  have  to  wait,  after  perceiving 
the  former,  more  than  13  entire  days  and  nights  before 
getting  any  intimation  of  the  latter. 

However  feeble  be  the  impression,  even  thus  conveyed, 
of  the  Moon's  real  distance  from  the  Earth,  it  will,  never 
theless,  effect  a  good  object  in  enabling  us  more  clearly  to 
see  the  futility  of  attempting  to  grasp  such  intervals  as  that 
of  the  28  hundred  millions  of  miles  between  our  Sun  and 
Neptune  ;  or  even  that  of  the  95  millions  between  the  Sun 
and  the  Earth  we  inhabit.  A  cannon-ball,  flying  at  the 
greatest  velocity  with  which  such  a  ball  has  ever  been 
known  to  fly,  could  not  traverse  the  latter  interval  in 
less  than  20  years  ;  while  for  the  former  it  would  require 
590. 

Our  Moon's  real  diameter  is  2160  miles ;  yet  she  is 
comparatively  so  trifling  an  object  that  it  would  take  nearly 
50  such  orbs  to  compose  one  as  great  as  the  Earth. 

The  diameter  of  our  own  globe  is  7912  miles — but 
from  the  enunciation  of  these  numbers  what  positive  idea 
do  we  derive  ? 

If  we  ascend  an  ordinary  mountain  and  look  around  us 
from  its  summit,  we  behold  a  landscape  stretching,  say  40 
miles,  in  every  direction  ;  forming  a  circle  250  miles  in  cir 
cumference  ;  and  including  an  area  of  5000  square  miles. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  109 

The  extent  of  such  a  prospect,  on  account  of  the  succes 
siveness  with  which  its  portions  necessarily  present  them 
selves  to  view,  can  be  only  very  feebly  and  very  partially 
appreciated  : — yet  the  entire  panorama  would  comprehend 
no  more  than  one  40,000th  part  of  the  mere  surface  of 
our  globe.  Were  this  panorama,  then,  to  be  succeeded, 
after  the  lapse  of  an  hour,  by  another  of  equal  extent ;  this 
again  by  a  third,  after  the  lapse  of  another  hour  ;  this  again 
by  a  fourth  after  lapse  of  another  hour — and  so  on,  until 
the  scenery  of  the  whole  Earth  were  exhausted  ;  and  were 
we  to  be  engaged  in  examining  these  various  panoramas 
for  twelve  hours  of  every  day ;  we  should  nevertheless,  be 
9  years  and  48  days  in  completing  the  general  survey. 

But  if  the  mere  surface  of  the  Earth  eludes  the  grasp 
of  the  imagination,  what  are  we  to  think  of  its  cubical  con 
tents  ?  it  embraces  a  mass  of  matter  equal  in  weight  to 
at  least  2  sextillions,  200  quintillions  of  tons.  Let  us  sup 
pose  it  in  a  state  of  quiescence  ;  and  now  let  us  endeavor 
to  conceive  a  mechanical  force  sufficient  to  set  it  in  mo 
tion  !  Not  the  strength  of  all  the  myriads  of -beings  whom 
we  may  conclude  to  inhabit  the  planetary  worlds  of  our 
system — not  the  combined  physical  strength  of  all  these 
beings — even  admitting  all  to  be  more  powerful  than  man 
— would  avail  to  stir  the  ponderous  mass  a  single  inch  from 
its  position. 

What  are  we  to  understand,  then,  of  the  force,  which 
under  similar  circumstances,  would  be  required  to  move 
the  largest  of  our  planets,  Jupiter  ?  This  is  86,000  miles 
in  diameter,  and  would  include  within  its  periphery  more 
than  a  thousand  orbs  of  the  magnitude  of  our  own.  Yet 


110  E  U  II  E  K  A. 


this  stupendous  body  is  actually  flying  around  the  Sun  at 
the  rate  of  29,000  miles  an  hour — that  is  to  say,  with  a 
velocity  40  times  greater  than  that  of  a  cannon-ball !  The 
thought  of  such  a  phenomenon  cannot  well  be  said  to 
startle  the  mind  : — it  palsies  and  appals  it.  Not  unfre- 
quently  we  task  our  imagination  in  picturing  the  capacities 
of  an  angel.  Let  us  fancy  such  a  being  at  a  distance  of 
some  hundred  miles  from  Jupiter — a  close  eye-witness  of 
this  planet  as  it  speeds  on  its  annual  revolution.  Now 
can  we,  I  demand,  fashion  for  ourselves  any  conception  so 
distinct  of  this  ideal  being's  spiritual  exaltation,  as  that  in 
volved  in  the  supposition  that,  even  by  this  immeasurable 
mass  of  matter,  whirled  immediately  before  his  eyes,  with 
a  velocity  so  unutterable,  he — an  angel — angelic  though 
he  be — is  not  at  once  struck  into  nothingness  and  over 
whelmed  ? 

At  this  point,  however,  it  seems  proper  to  suggest  that, 
in  fact,  we  have  been  speaking  of  comparative  trifles.  Our 
Sun,  the  central  and  controlling  orb  of  the  system  to  which 
Jupiter  belongs,  is  not  only  greater  than  Jupiter,  but  greater 
by  far  than  all  the  planets  of  the  system  taken  together. 
This  fact  is  an  essential  condition,  indeed,  of  the  stability 
of  the  system  itself.  The  diameter  of  Jupiter  has  been 
mentioned : — it  is  86,000  miles  :— that  of  the  Sun  is  882,000 
miles.  An  inhabitant  of  the  latter,  travelling  90  miles  a 
day,  would  be  more  than  80  years  in  going  round  a  great 
circle  of  its  circumference.  It  occupies  a  cubical  space  of 
681  quadrillions,  472  trillions  of  miles.  The  Moon,  as  has 
been  stated,  revolves  about  the  Earth  at  a  distance  of 
237,000  miles — in  an  orbit,  consequently,  of  nearly  a  mil- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  Ill 

lion  and  a  half.  Now,  were  the  Sun  placed  upon  the 
Earth,  centre  over  centre,  the  body  of  the  former  would 
extend,  in  every  direction,  not  only  to  the  line  of  the 
Moon's  orbit,  but  beyond  it,  a  distance  of  200,000  miles. 

And  here,  once  again,  let  me  suggest  that,  in  fact,  we 
have  still  been  speaking  of  comparative  trifles.  The  dis 
tance  of  the  planet  Neptune  from  the  Sun  has  been  stated  : 
— it  is  28  hundred  millions  of  miles  ;  the  circumference  of 
its  orbit,  therefore,  is  about  17  billions.  Let  this  be  borne 
in  mind  while  we  glance  at  some  one  of  the  brightest  stars. 
Between  this  and  the  star  of  our  system,  (the  Sun,)  there 
is  a  gulf  of  space,  to  convey  any  idea  of  which  we  should 
need  the  tongue  of  an  archangel.  From  our  system,  then, 
and  from  our  Sun,  or  star,  the  star  at  which  we  suppose 
ourselves  glancing  is  a  thing  altogether  apart : — still,  for 
the  moment,  let  us  imagine  it  placed  upon  our  Sun,  centre 
over  centre,  as  we  just  now  imagined  this  Sun  itself  placed 
upon  the  Earth.  Let  us  now  conceive  the  particular  star 
we  have  in  mind,  extending,  in  every  direction,  beyond  the 
orbit  of  Mercury — of  Venus — of  the  Earth  : — still  on,  be 
yond  the  orbit  of  Mars — of  Jupiter — of  Uranus — until, 
finally,  we  fancy  it  filling  the  circle — 17  billions  of  miles 
in  circumference — which  is  described  by  the  revolution  of 
Leverrier's  planet.  When  we  have  conceived  all  this,  we 
shall  have  entertained  no  extravagant  conception.  There 
is  the  very  best  reason  for  believing  that  many  of  the  stars 
are  even  far  larger  than  the  one  we  have  imagined.  I 
mean  to  say  that  we  have  the  very  best  empirical  basis  for 
such  belief : — and,  in  looking  back  at  the  original,  atomic 
arrangements  for  diversity,  which  have  been  assumed  as  a 


112  EUREKA. 


part  of  the  Divine  plan  in  the  constitution  of  the  Universe, 
we  shall  be  enabled  easily  to  understand,  and  to  credit,  the 
existence  of  even  far  vaster  disproportions  in  stellar  size 
than  any  to  which  I  have  hitherto  alluded.  The  largest 
orbs,  of  course,  we  must  expect  to  find  rolling  through  the 
widest  vacancies  of  Space. 

I  remarked,  just  now,  that  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  in 
terval  between  our  Sun  and  any  one  of  the  other  stars,  we 
should  require  the  eloquence  of  an  archangel.  In  so  say 
ing,  I  should  not  be  accused  of  exaggeration  ;  for,  in  simple 
truth,  these  are  topics  on  which  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
exaggerate.  But  let  us  bring  the  matter  more  distinctly 
before  the  eye  of  the  mind. 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  get  a  general,  relative  con 
ception  of  the  interval  referred  to,  by  comparing  it  with 
the  inter-planetary  spaces.  If,  for  example,  we  suppose  the 
Earth,  which  is,  in  reality,  95  millions  of  miles  from  the 
Sun,  to  be  only  one  foot  from  that  luminary ;  then  Neptune 
would  be  40  feet  distant ;  and  the  star  Alpha  Lyrce,  at  the 
very  least,  159. 

Now  I  presume  that,  in  the  termination  of  my  last  sen 
tence,  few  of  my  readers  have  noticed  anything  especially 
objectionable — particularly  wrong.  I  said  that  the  distance 
of  the  Earth  from  the  Sun  being  taken  at  one  foot,  the  distance 
of  Neptune  would  be  40  feet,  and  that  of  Alpha  Lyras,  159. 
The  proportion  between  one  foot  and  159  has  appeared, 
perhaps,  to  convey  a  sufficiently  definite  impression  of  the 
proportion  between  the  two  intervals — that  of  the  Earth 
from  the  Sun  and  that  of  Alpha  Lyras  from  the  same  lumi 
nary.  But  my  account  of  the  matter  should,  in  reality, 


THE    UNIVERSE.  113 

have  run  thus  : — The  distance  of  the  Earth  from  the  Sun 
being  taken  at  one  foot,  the  distance  of  Neptune  would  be 

40  feet,  and  that  of  Alpha  Lyrae,  159 miles: — that  is  to 

say,  1  had  assigned  to  Alpha  Lyra?,  in  my  first  statement 
of  the  case,  only  the  5280th  part  of  that  distance  which  is 
the  least  distance  possible  at  which  it  can  actually  lie. 

To  proceed  : — However  distant  a  mere  planet  is,  yet 
when  we  look  at  it  through  a  telescope,  we  see  it  under  a 
certain  form — of  a  certain  appreciable  size.  Now  I  have 
already  hinted  at  the  probable  bulk  of  many  of  the  stars  ; 
nevertheless,  when  we  view  any  one  of  them,  even  through 
the  most  powerful  telescope,  it  is  found  to  present  us  with 
no  form,  and  consequently  with  no  magnitude  whatever. 
We  see  it  as  a  point  and  nothing  more. 

Again  ; — Let  us  suppose  ourselves  walking,  at  night,  on 
a  highway.  In  a  field  on  one  side  of  the  road,  is  a  line  of 
tall  objects,  say  trees,  the  figures  of  which  are  distinctly 
defined  against  the  background  of  the  sky.  This  line  of 
objects  extends  at  right  angles  to  the  road,  and  from  the 
road  to  the  horizon.  Now,  as  we  proceed  along  the  road, 
we  see  these  objects  changing  their  positions,  respectively, 
in  relation  to  a  certain  fixed  point  in  that  portion  of  the 
firmament  which  forms  the  background  of  the  view.  Let 
us  suppose  this  fixed  point — sufficiently  fixed  for  our  pur 
pose — to  be  the  rising  moon.  We  become  aware,  at  once, 
that  while  the  tree  nearest  us  so  far  alters  its  position  in 
respect  to  the  moon,  as  to  seem  flying  behind  us,  the  tree 
in  the  extreme  distance  has  scarcely  changed  at  all  its  rela 
tive  position  with  the  satellite.  We  then  go  on  to  perceive 
that  the  farther  the  objects  are  from  us,  the  less  they  alter 


114  EUREKA. 


their  positions  ;  and  the  converse.  Then  we  begin,  unwit 
tingly,  to  estimate  the  distances  of  individual  trees  by  the 
degrees  in  which  they  evince  the  relative  alteration.  Fi 
nally,  we  come  to  understand  how  it  might  be  possible  to 
ascertain  the  actual  distance  of  any  given  tree  in  the  line, 
by  using  the  amount  of  relative  alteration  as  a  basis  in  a 
simple  geometrical  problem.  Now  this  relative  alteration 
is  what  we  call  "  parallax  ;"  and  by  parallax  we  calculate 
the  distances  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  Applying  the  princi 
ple  to  the  trees  in  question,  we  should,  of  course,  be  very 
much  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  the  distance  of  that  tree, 
which,  however  far  we  proceeded  along  the  road,  should 
evince  no  parallax  at  all.  This,  in  the  case  described,  is  a 
thing  impossible  ;  but  impossible  only  because  all  distances 
on  our  Earth  are  trivial  indeed  : — in  comparison  with  the 
vast  cosmical  quantities,  we  may  speak  of  them  as  abso 
lutely  nothing. 

Now,  let  us  suppose  the  star  Alpha  Lyrae  directly  over 
head  ;  and  let  us  imagine  that,  instead  of  standing  on  the 
Earth,  we  stand  at  one  end  of  a  straight  road  stretching 
through  Space  to  a  distance  equalling  the  diameter  of  the 
Earth's  orbit — that  is  to  say,  to  a  distance  of  190  millions 
of  miles.  Having  observed,  by  means  of  the  most  delicate 
micrometrical  instruments,  the  exact  position  of  the  star, 
let  us  now  pass  along  this  inconceivable  road,  until  we 
reach  its  other  extremity.  Now,  once  again,  let  us  look  at 
the  star.  It  is  precisely  where  we  left  it.  Our  instruments, 
however  delicate,  assure  us  that  its  relative  position  is  ab 
solutely — is  identically  the  same  as  at  the  commencement 
of  our  unutterable  journey.  No  parallax — none  whatever 
— has  been  found. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  115 

The  fact  is,  that,  in  regard  to  the  distance  of  the  fixed 
stars — of  any  one  of  the  myriads  of  suns  glistening  on  the 
farther  side  6f  that  awful  chasm  which  separates  our  sys 
tem  from  its  brothers  in  the  cluster  to  which  it  belongs — 
astronomical  science,  until  very  lately,  could  speak  only 
with  a  negative  certainty.  Assuming  the  brightest  as  the 
nearest,  we  could  say,  even  of  them,  only  that  there  is  a 
certain  incomprehensible  distance  on  the  hither  side  of 
which  they  cannot  be  : — how  far  they  are  beyond  it  we  had 
in  no  case  been  able  to  ascertain.  We  perceived,  for  exam 
ple,  that  Alpha  Lyrae  cannot  be  nearer  to  us  than  19  tril 
lions,  200  billions  of  miles ;  but,  for  all  we  knew,  and 
indeed  for  all  we  now  know,  it  may  be  distant  from  us  the 
square,  or  the  cube,  or  any  other  power  of  the  number 
mentioned.  By  dint,  however,  of  wonderfully  minute  and 
cautious  observations,  continued,  with  novel  instruments, 
for  many  laborious  years,  Bessel,  not  long  ago  deceased, 
has  lately  succeeded  in  determining  the  distance  of  six  or 
seven  stars  ;  among  others,  that  of  the  star  numbered  61 
in  the  constellation  of  the  Swan.  The  distance  in  this  lat 
ter  instance  ascertained,  is  670,000  times  that  of  the  Sun ; 
which  last  it  will  be  remembered,  is  95  millions  of  miles. 
The  star  61  Cygni,  then,  is  nearly  64  trillions  of  miles  from 
us — or  more  than  three  times  the  distance  assigned,  as  the 
least  possible,  for  Alpha  Lyrae. 

In  attempting  to  appreciate  this  interval  by  the  aid  of 
any  considerations  of  velocity,  as  we  did  in  endeavoring  to 
estimate  the  distance  of  the  moon,  we  must  leave  out  of 
sight,  altogether,  such  nothings  as  the  speed  of  a  cannon 
ball,  or  of  sound.  Light,  however,  according  to  the  latest 


116  EUIIEKA. 


calculations  of  Struve,  proceeds  at  the  rate  of  167,000  miles 
in  a  second.  Thought  itself  cannot  pass  through  this  in 
terval  more  speedily — if,  indeed,  thought  can  traverse  it  at 
all.  Yet,  in  coming  from  61  Cygni  to  us,  even  at  this  in 
conceivable  rate,  light  occupies  more  than  ten  years  ;  and, 
consequently,  were  the  star  this  moment  blotted  out  from 
the  Universe,  still,  for  ten  years,  would  it  continue  to  spar 
kle  on,  undimmed  in  its  paradoxical  glory. 

Keeping  now  in  mind  whatever  feeble  conception  we 
may  have  attained  of  the  interval  between  our  Sun  and  61 
Cygni,  let  us  remember  that  this  interval,  however  unutter 
ably  vast,  we  are  permitted  to  consider  as  but  the  average 
interval  among  the  countless  host  of  stars  composing  that 
cluster,  or  "  nebula,"  to  which  our  system,  as  well  as  that 
of  61  Cygni,  belongs.  I  have,  in  fact,  stated  the  case  with 
great  moderation  : — we  have  excellent  reason  for  believing 
61  Cygni  to  be  one  of  the  nearest  stars,  and  thus  for  con 
cluding,  at  least  for  the  present,  that  its  distance  from  us  is 
less  than  the  average  distance  between  star  and  star  in  the 
magnificent  cluster  of  the  Milky  Way. 

And  here,  once  again  and  finally,  it  seems  proper  to 
suggest  that  even  as  yet  we  have  been  speaking  of  trifles. 
Ceasing  to  wonder  at  the  space  between  star  and  star  in 
our  own  or  in  any  particular  cluster,  let  us  rather  turn  our 
thoughts  to  the  intervals  between  cluster  and  cluster,  in  the 
all  comprehensive  cluster  of  the  Universe. 

I  have  already  said  that  light  proceeds  at  the  rate  of 
167,000  miles  in  a  second — that  is,  about  10  millions  of 
miles  in  a  minute,  or  about  600  millions  of  miles  in  an 
hour : — yet  so  far  removed  from  us  are  some  of  the 


THE     UNIVERSE.  117 

"  nebulae "  that  even  light,  speeding  with  this  velocity, 
could  not  and  does  not  reach  us,  from  those  mysterious 
regions,  in  less  than  3  millions  of  years.  This  calculation, 
moreover,  is  made  by  the  elder  Herschell,  and  in  reference 
merely  to  those  comparatively  proximate  clusters  within 
the  scope  of  his  own  telescope.  There  are  "  nebulae," 
however,  which,  through  the  magical  tube  of  Lord  Rosse, 
are  this  instant  whispering  in  our  ears  the  secrets  of  a 
million  of  ages  by-gone.  In  a  word,  the  events  which  we 
behold  now — at  this  moment — in  those  worlds — are  the 
identical  events  which  interested  their  inhabitants  ten  hun 
dred  thousand  centuries  ago.  In  intervals — in  distances 
such  as  this  suggestion  forces  upon  the  soul — rather  than 
upon  the  mind — we  find,  at  length,  a  fitting  climax  to  all 
hitherto  frivolous  considerations  of  quantity. 

Our  fancies  thus  occupied  with  the  cosmical  distances,  let 
us  take  the  opportunity  of  referring  to  the  difficulty  which 
we  have  so  often  experienced,  while  pursuing  the  beaten  path 
of  astronomical  reflection,  in  accounting  for  the  immeasur 
able  voids  alluded  to — in  comprehending  why  chasms  so 
totally  unoccupied  and  therefore  apparently  so  needless, have 
been  made  to  intervene  between  star  and  star — between  clus 
ter  and  cluster — in  understanding,  to  be  brief,  a  sufficient  rea 
son  for  the  Titanic  scale,  in  respect  of  mere  Space,  on  which 
the  Universe  is  seen  to  be  constructed.  A  rational  cause 
for  the  phaenomenon,  I  maintain  that  Astronomy  has  palpa 
bly  failed  to  assign  : — but  the  considerations  through  which, 
in  this  Essay,  we  have  proceeded  step  by  step,  enable  us 
clearly  and  immediately  to  perceive  that  Space  and  Dura 
tion  are  one.  That  the  Universe  might  endure  throughout 


118  EUREKA. 


an  aera  at  all  commensurate  with  the  grandeur  of  its  com 
ponent  material  portions  and  with  the  high  majesty  of  its 
spiritual  purposes,  it  was  necessary  that  the  original  atomic 
diffusion  be  made  to  so  inconceivable  an  extent  as  to  be 
only  not  infinite.  It  was  required,  in  a  word,  that  the  stars 
should  be  gathered  into  visibility  from  invisible  nebulosity 
— proceed  from  nebulosity  to  consolidation — and  so  grow 
grey  in  giving  birth  and  death  to  unspeakably  numerous 
and  complex  variations  of  vitalic  development : — it  was 
required  that  the  stars  should  do  all  this — should  have  time 
thoroughly  to  accomplish  all  these  Divine  purposes — during 
the  period  in  which  all  things  were  effecting  their  return 
into  Unity  with  a  velocity  accumulating  in  the  inverse 
proportion  of  the  squares  of  the  distances  at  which  lay  the 
inevitable  End. 

Throughout  all  this  we  have  no  difficulty  in  understand 
ing  the  absolute  accuracy  of  the  Divine  adaptation.  The 
density  of  the  stars,  respectively,  proceeds,  of  course,  as 
their  condensation  diminishes ;  condensation  and  hetero 
geneity  keep  pace  with  each  other ;  through  the  latter, 
which  is  the  index  of  the  former,  we  estimate  the  vitalic 
and  spiritual  development.  Thus,  in  the  density  of  the 
globes,  we  have  the  measure  in  which  their  purposes  are 
fulfilled.  As  density  proceeds — as  the  divine  intentions 
are  accomplished — as  less  and  still  less  remains  to  be  ac 
complished — so — in  the  same  ratio — should  we  expect  to 
find  an  acceleration  of  the  End : — and  thus  the  philosophical 
mind  will  easily  comprehend  that  the  Divine  designs  in 
constituting  the  stars,  advance  mathematically  to  their  ful 
filment  : — and  more  ;  it  will  readily  give  the  advance  a 


THE     UNIVERSE.  119 

mathematical  expression  ;  it  will  decide  that  this  advance 
is  inversely  proportional  with  the  squares  of  the  distances 
of  all  created  things  from  the  starting-point  and  goal  of 
their  creation. 

Not  only  is  this  Divine  adaptation,  however,  mathe 
matically  accurate,  but  there  is  that  about  it  which  stamps 
it  as  divine,  in  distinction  from  that  which  is  merely  the 
work  of  human  constructiveness.  I  allude  to  the  complete 
mutuality  of  adaptation.  For  example  ;  in  human  con 
structions  a  particular  cause  has  a  particular  effect ;  a  par 
ticular  intention  brings  to  pass  a  particular  object ;  but  this 
is  all ;  we  see  no  reciprocity.  The  effect  does  not  re-act 
upon  the  cause  ;  the  intention  does  not  change  relations 
with  the  object.  In  Divine  constructions  the  object  is 
either  design  or  object  as  we  choose  to  regard  it — and 
we  may  take  at  any  time  a  cause  for  an  effect,  or  the  con 
verse — so  that  we  can  never  absolutely  decide  which  is 
which. 

To  give  an  instance  :— In  polar  climates  the  human 
frame,  to  maintain  its  animal  heat,  requires,  for  combustion 
in  the  capillary  system,  an  abundant  supply  of  highly 
azotized  food,  such  as  train-oil.  But  again  : — in  polar  cli 
mates  nearly  the  sole  food ^  afforded  man  is  the  oil  of  abun 
dant  seals  and  whales.  Now,  whether  is  oil  at  hand  because 
imperatively  demanded,  or  the  only  thing  demanded  because 
the  only  thing  to  be  obtained  ?  It  is  impossible  to  decide. 
There  is  an  absolute  reciprocity  of  adaptation. 

The  pleasure  which  we  derive  from  any  display  of 
human  ingenuity  is  in  the  ratio  of  the  approach  to  this 
species  of  reciprocity.  In  the  construction  of  plot,  for  ex- 


120  EUREKA. 


ample,  in  fictitious  literature,  we  should  aim  at  so  arranging 
the  incidents  that  we  shall  not  be  able  to  determine,  of 
any  one  of  them,  whether  it  depends  from  any  one  other 
or  upholds  it.  In  this  sense,  of  course,  perfection  of  plot 
is  really,  or  practically,  unattainable — but  only  because  it  is 
a  finite  intelligence  that  constructs.  The  plots  of  God  are 
perfect.  The  Universe  is  a  plot  of  God. 

And  now  we  have  reached  a  point  at  which  the  intel 
lect  is  forced,  again,  to  struggle  against  its  propensity  for 
analogical  inference — against  its  monomaniac  grasping  at 
the  infinite.  Moons  have  been  seen  revolving  about 
planets  ;  planets  about  stars  ;  and  the  poetical  instinct  of 
humanity — its  instinct  of  the  symmetrical,  if  the  symmetry 
be  but  a  symmetry  of  surface  : — this  instinct,  which  the 
Soul,  not  only  of  Man  but  of  all  created  beings,  took  up, 
in  the  beginning,  from  the  geometrical  basis  of  the  Univer 
sal  irradiation — impels  us  to  the  fancy  of  an  endless  exten 
sion  of  this  system  of  cycles.  Closing  our  eyes  equally  to 
deduction  and  induction,  we  insist  upon  imagining  a  revo 
lution  of  all  the  orbs  of  the  Galaxy  about  some  gigantic 
globe  which  we  take  to  be  the  central  pivot  o£  the  whole. 
Each  cluster  in  the  great  cluster  of  clusters  is  imagined,  of 
course,  to  be  similarly  supplied  and  constructed  ;  while, 
that  the  "  analogy  "  may  be  wanting  at  no  point,  we  go  on 
to  conceive  these  clusters  themselves,  again,  as  revolving 
about  some  still  more  august  sphere ; — this  latter,  still  again, 
with  its  encircling  clusters,  as  but  one  of  a  yet  more  mag 
nificent  series  of  agglomerations,  gyrating  about  yet 
another  orb  central  to  them — some  orb  still  more  unspeaka 
bly  sublime — some  orb,  let  us  rather  say,  of  infinite  sub- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  121 

limity  endlessly  multiplied  by  the  infinitely  sublime.  Such 
are  the  conditions,  continued  in  perpetuity,  which  the  voice 
of  what  some  people  term  "analogy"  calls  upon  the  Fancy 
to  depict  and  the  Reason  to  contemplate,  if  possible,  with 
out  becoming  dissatisfied  with  the  picture.  Such,  in  general, 
are  the  interminable  gyrations  beyond  gyration  which  we 
have  been  instructed  by  Philosophy  to  comprehend  and  to 
account  for,  at  least  in  the  best  manner  we  can.  Now 
and  then,  however,  a  philosopher  proper — one  whose 
phrenzy  takes  a  very  determinate  turn — whose  genius,  to 
speak  more  reverentially,  has  a  strongly-pronounced  washer- 
womanish  bias,  doing  every  thing  up  by  the  dozen — enables 
us  to  see  precisely  that  point  out  of  sight,  at  which  the  rev 
olutionary  processes  in  question  do,  and  of  right  ought  to, 
come  to  an  end. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while,  perhaps,  even  to  sneer  at  the 
reveries  of  Fourrier  : — but  much  has  been  said,  latterly,  of 
the  hypothesis  of  Madler — that  there  exists,  in  the  centre 
of  the  Galaxy,  a  stupendous  globe  about  which  all  the  sys 
tems  of  the  cluster  revolve.  The  period  of  our  own,  in 
deed,  has  been  stated — 117  millions  of  years. 

That  our  Sun  has  a  motion  in  space,  independently  of 
its  rotation,  and  revolution  about  the  system's  centre  of 
gravity,  has  long  been  suspected.  This  motion,  granting  it 
to  exist,  would  be  manifested  perspectively.  The  stars  in 
that  firmamental  region  which  we  were  leaving  behind  us, 
would,  in  a  very  long  series  of  years,  become  crowded ; 
those  in  the  opposite  quarter,  scattered.  Now,  by  means  of 
astronomical  History,  we  ascertain,  cloudily,  that  some 
such  phenomena  have  occurred.  On  this  ground  it  has 

6 


122  EUREKA. 


been  declared  that  our  system  is  moving  to  a  point  in  the 
heavens  diametrically  opposite  the  star  Zeta  Herculis: — but 
this  inference  is,  perhaps,  the  maximum  to  which  we  have 
any  logical  right.  Madler,  however,  has  gone  so  far  as  to 
designate  a  particular  star,  Alcyone  in  the  Pleiades,  as  being 
at  or  about  the  very  spot  around  which  a  general  revolution 
is  performed. 

Now,  since  by  "  analogy  "  we  are  led,  in  the  first  in 
stance,  to  these  dreams,  it  is  no  more  than  proper  that  we 
should  abide  by  analogy,  at  least  in  some  measure,  during 
their  development ;  and  that  analogy  which  suggests  the 
revolution,  suggests  at  the  same  time  a  central  orb  about 
which  it  should  be  performed : — so  far  the  astronomer  was 
consistent.  This  central  orb,  however,  should,  dynamically, 
be  greater  than  all  the  orbs,  taken  together,  which  surround 
it.  Of  these  there  are  about  100  millions.  "Why,  then," 
it  was  of  course  demanded,  "  do  we  not  see  this  vast  cen 
tral  sun — at  least  equal  in  mass  to  100  millions  of  such 
suns  as  ours — why  do  we  not  see  it — we,  especially,  who 
occupy  the  mid  region  of  the  cluster — the  very  locality 
near  which,  at  all  events,  must  be  situated  this  incom 
parable  star  ?"  The  reply  was  ready — "  It  must  be  non- 
luminous,  as  are  our  planets."  Here,  then,  to  suit  a  pur 
pose,  analogy  is  suddenly  let  fall.  "  Not  so,"  it  may  be 
said — «  \ve  know  that  non-luminous  suns  actually  exist." 
It  is  true  that  we  have  reason  at  least  for  supposing  so  ;  but 
we  have  certainly  no  reason  whatever  for  supposing  that 
the  non-luminous  suns  in  question  are  encircled  by  luminous 
suns,  while  these  again  are  surrounded  by  non-luminous 
planets  : — and  it  is  precisely  all  this  with  -which  Madler  is 


THE    UNIVERSE.  123 

called  upon  to  find  any  thing  analogous  in  the  heavens — 
for  it  is  precisely  all  this  which  he  imagines  in  the  case  of 
the  Galaxy.  Admitting  the  thing  to  be  so,  we  cannot  help 
here  picturing  to  ourselves  how  sad  a  puzzle  the  why  it  is  so 
must  prove  to  all  a  priori  philosophers. 

But  granting,  in  the  very  teeth  of  analogy  and  of  every 
thing  else,  the  non-luminosity  of  the  vast  central  orb,  we 
may  still  inquire  how  this  orb,  so  enormous,  could  fail  of 
being  rendered  visible  by  the  flood  of  light  thrown  upon  it 
from  the  100  millions  of  glorious  suns  glaring  in  all  direc 
tions  about  it.  Upon  the  urging  of  this  question,  the  idea 
of  an  actually  solid  central  sun  appears,  in  some  measure, 
to  have  been  abandoned ;  and  speculation  proceeded  to 
assert  that  the  systems  of  the  cluster  perform  their  revolu 
tions  merely  about  an  immaterial  centre  of  gravity  common 
to  all.  Here  again  then,  to  suit  a  purpose,  analogy  is  let 
fall.  The  planets  of  our  system  revolve,  it  is  true,  about  a 
common  centre  of  gravity ;  but  they  do  this  in  connexion 
with,  and  in  consequence  of,  a  material  sun  whose  mass 
more  than  counterbalances  the  rest  of  the  system. 

The  mathematical  circle  is  a  curve  composed  of  an  in 
finity  of  straight  lines.  But  this  idea  of  the  circle — an  idea 
which,  in  view  of  all  ordinary  geometry,  is  merely  the  ma 
thematical,  as  contradistinguished  from  the  practical,  idea — 
is,  in  sober  fact,  the  practical  conception  which  alone  we 
have  any  right  to  entertain  in  regard  to  the  majestic  circle 
with  which  we  have  to  deal,  at  least  in  fancy,  when  we 
suppose  our  system  revolving  about  a  point  in  the  centre 
of  the  Galaxy.  Let  the  most  vigorous  of  human  imagina 
tions  attempt  but  to  take  a  single  step  towards  the  compre- 


124  EUREKA. 


hension  of  a  sweep  so  ineffable  !  It  would  scarcely  be 
paradoxical  to  say  that  a  flash  of  lightning  itself,  travelling 
forever  upon  the  circumference  of  this  unutterable  circle, 
would  still,  forever,  be  travelling  in  a  straight  line.  That 
the  path  of  our  Sun  in  such  an  orbit  would,  to  any  human 
perception,  deviate  in  the  slightest  degree  from  a  straight 
line,  even  in  a  million  of  years,  is  a  proposition  not  to  be 
entertained  : — yet  we  are  required  to  believe  that  a  curva 
ture  has  become  apparent  during  the  brief  period  of  our 
astronomical  history — during  a  mere  point — during  the  ut 
ter  nothingness  of  two  or  three  thousand  years. 

It  may  be  said  that  Madler  has  really  ascertained  a 
curvature  in  the  direction  of  our  system's  now  well-estab 
lished  progress  through  Space.  Admitting,  if  necessary, 
this  fact  to  be  in  reality  such,  I  maintain  that  nothing  is 
thereby  shown  except  the  reality  of  this  fact — the  fact  of  a 
curvature.  For  its  thorough  determination,  ages  will  be 
required  ;  and,  when  determined,  it  will  be  found  indicative 
of  some  binary  or  other  multiple  relation  between  our  Sun 
and  some  one  or  more  of  the  proximate  stars.  I  hazard 
nothing  however,  in  predicting,  that,  after  the  lapse  of  many 
centuries,  all  efforts  at  determining  the  path  of  our  Sun 
through  Space,  will  be  abandoned  as  fruitless.  This  is 
easily  conceivable  when  we  look  at  the  infinity  of  pertur 
bation  it  must  experience,  from  its  perpetually-shifting  rela 
tions  with  other  orbs,  in  the  common  approach  of  all  to  the 
nucleus  of  the  Galaxy. 

But  in  examining  other  "  nebulae  "  than  that  of  the 
Milky  Way — in  surveying,  generally,  the  clusters  which 
overspread  the  heavens — do  we  or  do  we  not  find  confir- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  125 

mation  of  Madler's  hypothesis  ?  We  do  not.  The  forms 
of  the  clusters  are  exceedingly  diverse  when  casually 
viewed  ;  but  on  close  inspection,  through  powerful  teles 
copes,  we  recognize  the  sphere,  very  distinctly,  as  at  least 
the  proximate  form  of  all : — their  constitution,  in  general, 
being  at  variance  with  the  idea  of  revolution  about  a  com- 


o 

mon  centre. 


"  It  is  difficult,"  says  Sir  John  Herschell,  "  to  form  any 
conception  oi*the  dynamical  state  of  such  systems.  On  one 
hand,  without  a  rotary  motion  and  a  centrifugal  force,  it  is 
hardly  possible  not  to  regard  them  as  in  a  state  of  progres 
sive  collapse.  On  the  otrier,  granting  such  a  motion  and 
such  a  force,  we  find  it  no  less  difficult  to  reconcile  their 
forms  with  the  rotation  of  the  whole  system  [meaning  clus 
ter]  around  any  single  axis,  without  which  internal  collision 
would  appear  to  be  inevitable." 

Some  remarks  lately  made  about  the  "  nebulae "  by 
Dr.  Nichol,  in  taking  quite  a  different  view  of  the  cosmical 
conditions  from  any  taken  in  this  Discourse — have  a  very 
peculiar  applicability  to  the  point  now  at  issue.  He  says : 

"  When  our  greatest  telescopes  are  brought  to  bear 
upon  them,  we  find  that  those  which  were  thought  to  be 
irregular,  are  not  so  ;  they  approach  nearer  to  a  globe. 
Here  is  one  that  looked  oval ;  but  Lord  Rosse's  telescope 

brought  it  into  a  circle Now  there  occurs  a  very 

remarkable  circumstance  in  reference  to  these  compara 
tively  sweeping  circular  masses  of  nebulas.  We  find  they 
are  not  entirely  circular,  but  the  reverse ;  and  that  all 
around  them,  on  every  side,  there  are  volumes  of  stars, 
stretching  out  apparently  as  if  they  were  rushing  towards 


126  EUIIEKA. 


a  great  central  mass  in  consequence  of  the  action  of  some 
great  power"  * 

Were  I  to  describe,  in  my  own  words,  what  must 
necessarily  be  the  existing  condition  of  each  nebula  on  the 
hypothesis  that  all  matter  is,  as  I  suggest,  now  returning  to 
its  original  Unity,  I  should  simply  be  going  over,  nearly 
verbatim,  the  language  here  employed  by  Dr.  Nichol,  with 
out  the  faintest  suspicion  of  that  stupendous  truth  which  is 
the  key  to  these  nebular  phenomena.  .  • 

And  here  let  me  fortify  my  position  still  farther,  by  the 
voice  of  a  greater  than  Madler — of  one,  moreover,  to  whom 
all  the  data  of  Madler  have  long*been  familiar  things,  care 
fully  and  thoroughly  considered.  Referring  to  the  elaborate 
calculations  of  Argelander — the  very  researches  which  form 
Madler's  basis — Humboldt,  whose  generalizing  powers  have 
never,  perhaps  been  equalled,  has  the  following  observa 
tion  : 

"  When  we  regard  the  real,  proper,  or  non-perspective 
motions  of  the  stars,  we  find  many  groups  of  them  moving 
in  opposite  directions  ;  and  the  data  as  yet  in  hand  render 
it  not  necessary,  at  least,  to  conceive  that  the  systems  com 
posing  the  Milky  Way,  or  the  clusters,  generally,  compos 
ing  the  Universe,  are  revolving  about  any  particular  centre 
unknown,  whether  luminous  or  non-luminous.  It  is  but 
Man's  longing  for  a  fundamental  First  Cause,  that  impels 

*  I  must  be  understood  as  denying,  especially,  only  the  revolutionary  por 
tion  of  Madler's  hypothesis.  Of  course,  if  no  great  central  orb  exists  now  in 
our  cluster,  such  will  exist  hereafter.  Whenever  existing,  it  will  be  merely 
the  nucleus  of  the  consolidation. 


THE     UNIVERSE.  127 

both  his  intellect  and  his  fancy  to  the  adoption  of  such  an 
hypothesis."  * 

The  phenomenon  here  alluded  to — that  of  "  many 
groups  moving  in  opposite  directions  " — is  quite  inexplica 
ble  by  Madler's  idea;  but  arises,  as  a  necessary  conse 
quence,  from  that  which  forms  the  basis  of  this  Discourse. 
While  the  merely  general  direction  of  each  atom — of  each 
moon,  planet,  star,  or  cluster — would,  on  my  hypothesis,  be, 
of  course,  absolutely  rectilinear ;  while  the  general  path  of 
all  bodies  would  be  a  right  line  leading  to  the  centre  of  all ; 
it  is  clear,  nevertheless,  that  this  general  rectilinearity  would 
be  compounded  of  what,  with  scarcely  any  exaggeration, 
we  may  term  an  infinity  of  particular  curves — an  infinity 
of  local  deviations  from  rectilinearity — the  result  of  conti 
nuous  differences  of  relative  position  among  the  multudi- 
nous  masses,  as  each  proceeded  on  its  own  proper  journey 
to  the  End. 

I  quoted,  just  now,  from  Sir  John  Herschell,  the  follow 
ing  words,  used  in  reference  to  the  clusters  : — "  On  one 
hand,  without  a  rotary  motion  and  a  centrifugal  force,  it  is 
hardly  possible  not  to  regard  them  as  in  a  state  of  progres 
sive  collapse."  The  fact  is,  that,  in  surveying  the  "  nebu- 

*  Betrachtet  man  die  nicht  perspectivischen  eigenen  Bewegungen  der 
Sterne,  so  scheinen  viele  gruppenweise  in  ihrer  Richtung  entgegengesetzt  ; 
und  die  bisher  gesammelten  Thatsachen  machen  es  auf ' s  wenigste  nicht  noth- 
wendig,  anzunehmen,  dass  alle  Theile  unserer  Sternenschicht  oder  gar  der 
gesammten  Sterneninseln,  welche  den  Weltraum  fallen,  sich  urn  einen  grossen, 
unbekannten,  leuchtenden  oder  dunkeln  Centralkorper  bewegen.  Das  Streben 
nach  den  letzten  und  hochsten  Grundursachen  macht  freilich  die  reflectirende 
Thatigkeit  des  Menschen,  wie  seine  Phantasie,  zu  einer  solchen  Annahme 
geneigt. 


128  E  U  B,  E  K  A'. 


lae  "  with  a  telescope  of  high  power,  we  shall  find  it  quite 
impossible,  having  once  conceived  this  idea  of  "  collapse/' 
not  to  gather,  at  all  points,  corroboration  of  the  idea.  A 
nucleus  is  always  apparent,  in  the  direction  of  which  the 
stars  seem  to  be  precipitating  themselves ;  nor  can  these 
nuclei  be  mistaken  for  merely  perspective  phsenomena  : — 
the  clusters  are  really  denser  near  the  centre — sparser  in 
the  regions  more  remote  from  it.  In  a  word,  we  see  every 
thing  as  we  should  see  it  were  a  collapse  taking  place  ; 
but,  in  general,  it  may  be  said  of  these  clusters,  that  we  can 
fairly  entertain,  while  looking  at  them,  the  idea  of  orbitual 
movement  about  a  centre,  only  by  admitting  the  possible 
existence,  in  the  distant  domains  of  space,  of  dynamical 
laws  with  which  we  are  unacquainted. 

On  the  part  of  Herschell,  however,  there  is  evidently 
a  reluctance  to  regard  the  nebulae  as  in  "  a  state  of  pro 
gressive  collapse."  But  if  facts — if  even  appearances  jus 
tify  the  supposition  of  their  being  in  this  state,  why,  it  may 
well  be  demanded,  is  he  disinclined  to  admit  it  ?  Simply 
on  account  of  a  prejudice  ; — merely  because  the  supposition 
is  at  war  with  a  preconceived  and  utterly  baseless  notion 
— that  of  the  endlessness — that  of  the  eternal  stability  of 
the  Universe. 

If  the  propositions  of  this  Discourse  are  tenable,  the 
"  state  of  progressive  collapse  "  is  precisely  that  state  in 
which  alone  we  are  warranted  in  considering  All  Things  ; 
and,  with  due  humility,  let  me  here  confess  that,  for  my 
part,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive  how  any  other  understanding 
of  the  existing  condition  of  affairs,  could  ever  have  made 
its  way  into  the  human  brain.  "  The  tendency  to  collapse  " 


THE     UNIVERSE.  129 

and  "  the  attraction  of  gravitation  "  are  convertible  phrases. 
In  using  either,  we  speak  of  the  reaction  of  the  First  Act. 
Never  was  necessity  less  obvious  than  that  of  supposing 
Matter  imbued  with  an  ineradicable  quality  forming  part 
of  its  material  nature — a  quality,  or  instinct,  forever  inse 
parable  from  it,  and  by  dint  of  which  inalienable  principle 
every  atom  is  perpetually  impelled  to  seek  its  fellow-atom. 
Never  was  necessity  less  obvious  than  that  of  entertaining 
this  unphilosophical  idea.  Going  boldly  behind  the  vulgar 
thought,  we  have  to  conceive,  metaphysically,  that  the  gra 
vitating  principle  appertains  to  Matter  temporarily — only 
while  diffused — only  while  existing  as  Many  instead  of  as 
One — appertains  to  it  by  virtue  of  its  state  of  irradiation 
alone — appertains,  in  a  word,  altogether  to  its  condition, 
and  not  in  the  slighest  degree  to  itself.  In  this  view,  when 
the  irradiation  shall  have  returned  into  its  source — when 
the  reaction  shall  be  completed — the  gravitating  principle 
will  no  longer  exist.  And,  in  fact,  astronomers,  without 
at  any  time  reaching  the  idea  here  suggested,  seem  to  have 
been  approximating  it,  in  the  assertion  that  "  if  there  were 
but  one  body  in  the  Universe,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
understand  how  the  principle,  Gravity,  could  obtain  :" — 
that  is  to  say,  from  a  consideration  of  Matter  as  they  find 
it,  they  reach  a  conclusion  at  which  I  deductively  arrive. 
That  so  pregnant  a  suggestion  as  the  one  just  quoted  should 
have  been  permitted  to  remain  so  long  unfruitful,  is,  never 
theless,  a  mystery  which  I  find  it  difficult  to  fathom. 

It  is,  perhaps,  in  no  little  degree,  however,  our  propen 
sity  for  the  continuous — for  the  analogical — in  the  present 
case  more   particularly  for  the   symmetrical — which  has 
6* 


130  EUREKA. 


been  leading  us  astray.  And,  in  fact,  the  sense  of  the  sym 
metrical  is  an  instinct  which  may  be  depended  upon  with 
an  almost  blindfold  reliance.  It  is  the  poetical  essence  of 
the  Universe — of  the  Universe  which,  in  the  supremeness  of 
its  symmetry,  is  but  the  most  sublime  of  poems.  Now 
symmetry  and  consistency  are  convertible  terms  : — thus 
Poetry  and  Truth  are  one.  A  thing  is  consistent  in  the 
ratio  of  its  truth — true  in  the  ratio  of  its  consistency.  A 
perfect  consistency,  I  repeat,  can  be  nothing  but  an  absolute 
truth.  We  may  take  it  for  granted,  then,  that  Man  cannot 
long  or  widely  err,  if  he  suffer  himself  to  be  guided  by  his 
poetical,  which  I  have  maintained  to  be  his  truthful,  in 
being  his  symmetrical,  instinct.  He  must  have  a  care, 
however,  lest,  in  pursuing  too  heedlessly  the  superficial  sym 
metry  of  forms  and  motions,  he  leave  out  of  sight  the  really 
essential  symmetry  of  the  principles  which  determine  and 
control  them. 

That  the  stellar  bodies  would  finally  be  merged  in  one 
— that,  at  last,  all  would  be  drawn  into  the  substance  of  one 
stupendous  central  orb  already  existing — is  an  idea  which, 
for  some  time  past,  seems,  vaguely  and  indeterminately,  to 
have  held  possesion  of  the  fancy  of  mankind.  It  is  an  idea, 
in  fact,  which  belongs  to  the  class  of  the  excessively  obvious. 
It  springs,  instantly,  from  a  superficial  observation  of  the 
cyclic  and  seemingly  gyrating,  or  vorticial  movements 
of  those  individual  portions  of  the  Universe  which  come 
most  immediately  and  most  closely  under  our  observation. 
There  is  not,  perhaps,  a  human  being,  of  ordinary  educa 
tion  and  of  average  reflective  capacity,  to  whom,  at  some 
period,  the  fancy  inquestion  has  not  occurred,  as  if  spon- 


THE     UNIVERSE.  131 

taneously,  or  intuitively,  and  wearing  all  the  character 
of  a  very  profound  and  very  original  conception.  This 
conception,  however,  so  commonly  entertained,  has  never, 
within  my  knowledge,  arisen  out  of  any  abstract  consider 
ations.  Being,  on  the  contrary,  always  suggested,  as  I  say, 
by  the  vorticial  movements  about  centres,  a  reason  for  it, 
also, — a  cause  for  the  ingathering  of  all  the  orbs  into  one, 
imagined  to  be  already  existing,  was  naturally  sought  in 
the  same  direction — among  these  cyclic  movements  them 
selves. 

Thus  it  happened  that,  on  announcement  of  the  gradual 
and  perfectly  regular  decrease  observed  in  the  orbit  of 
Enck's  comet,  at  every  successive  revolution  about  our 
Sun,  astronomers  were  nearly  unanimous  in  the  opinion 
that  the  cause  in  question  was  found — that  a  principle  was 
discovered  sufficient  to  account,  physically,  for  that  final, 
universal  agglomeration  which,  I  repeat,  the  analogical, 
symmetrical  or  poetical  instinct  of  Man  had  predetermined 
to  understand  as  something  more  than  a  simple  hypothesis. 

This  cause — this  sufficient  reason  for  the  final  ingather 
ing — was  declared  to  exist  in  an  exceedingly  rare  but  still 
material  medium  pervading  space ;  which  medium,  by  re 
tarding,  in  some  degree,  the  progress  of  the  comet,  perpet 
ually  weakened  its  tangential  force ;  thus  giving  a  predom 
inance  to  the  centripetal ;  which,  of  course,  drew  the  comet 
nearer  and  nearer  at  each  revolution,  8  nd  would  eventually 
precipitate  it  upon  the  Sun. 

All  this  was  strictly  logical — admitting  the  medium  or 
ether ;  but  this  ether  was  assumed,  most  illogically,  on  the 
ground  that  no  other  mode  than  the  one  spoken  of  could  be 


132  E  U  P.  E  K  A  . 


discovered,  of  accounting  for  the  observed  decrease  in  the 
orbit  of  the  comet : — as  if  from  the  fact  that  we  could  dis 
cover  no  other  mode  of  accounting  for  it,  it  followed,  in 
any  respect,  that  no  other  mode  of  accounting  for  it  existed. 
It  is  clear  that  innumerable  causes  might  operate,  in  com 
bination,  to  diminish  the  orbit,  without  even  a  possibility  of 
our  ever  becoming  acquainted  with  one  of  them.  In  the 
meantime,  it  has  never  been  fairly  shown,  perhaps,  why  the 
retardation  occasioned  by  the  skirts  of  the  Sun's  atmosphere, 
through  which  the  comet  passes  at  perihelion,  is  not  enough 
to  account  for  the  phenomenon.  That  Enck's  comet  will 
be  absorbed  into  the  Sun,  is  probable  ;  that  all  the  comets  of 
the  system  will  be  absorbed,  is  more  than  merely  possible  \ 
but,  in  such  case,  the  principle  of  absorption  must  be  re 
ferred  to  eccentricity  of  orbit — to  the  close  approximation 
to  the  Sun,  of  the  comets  at  their  perihelia ;  and  is  a  prin 
ciple  not  affecting,  in  any  degree,  the  ponderous  spheres, 
which  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  true  material  constituents 
of  the  Universe. — Touching  comets,  in  general,  let  me  here 
suggest,  in  passing,  that  we  cannot  be  far  wrong  in  looking 
upon  them  as  the  lightning-flashes  of  the  cosmical  Heaven, 
The  idea  of  a  retarding  ether  and,  through  it,  of  a  final 
agglomeration  of  all  things,  seemed  at  one  time,  however, 
to*  be  confirmed  by  the  observation  of  a  positive  decrease 
in  the  orbit  of  the  solid  moon.  By  reference  to  eclipses 
recorded  2500  years  ago,  it  was  found  that  the  velocity  of 
the  satellite's  revolution  then  was  considerably  less  than  it 
is  now ;  that  on  the  hypothesis  that  its  motions  in  its  orbit 
is  uniformly  in  accordance  with  Kepler's  law,  and  was  ac 
curately  determined  then — 2500  years  ago — it  is  now  in 


THE     UNIVERSE.  133 


advance  of  the  position  it  should  occupy,  by  nearly  9000 
miles.  The  increase  of  velocity  proved,  of  course,  a  diminu 
tion  of  orbit ;  and  astronomers  were  fast  yielding  to  a  be 
lief  in  an  ether,  as  the  sole  mode  of  accounting  for  the  phae- 
nomenon,  when  Lagrange  came  to  the  rescue.  He  showed 
that,  owing  to  the  configurations  of  the  spheroids,  the  short 
er  axes  of  their  ellipses  are  subject  to  variation  in  length ; 
the  longer  axes  being  permanent ;  and  that  this  variation 
is  continuous  and  vibratory — so  that  every  orbit  is  in  a 
state  of  transition,  either  from  circle  to  ellipse,  or  from  el 
lipse  to  circle.  In  the  case  of  the  moon,  where  the  shorter 
axis  is  decreasing,  the  orbit  is  passing  from  circle  to  ellipse 
and,  consequently,  is  decreasing  too ;  but,  after  a  long  series 
of  ages,  the  ultimate  eccentricity  will  be  attained ;  then  the 
shorter  axis  will  proceed  to  increase,  until  the  orbit  be 
comes  a  circle ;  when  the  process  of  shortening  will  again 
take  place ; — and  so  on  forever.  In  the  case  of  the  Earth, 
the  orbit  is  passing  from  ellipse  to  circle.  The  facts  thus 
demonstrated  do  away,  of  course,  with  all  necessity  for  sup 
posing  an  ether,  and  with  all  apprehension  of  the  system's 
instability — on  the  ether's  acount. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  I  have  myself  assumed  what 
we  may  term  an  ether.  I  have  spoken  of  a  subtle  influence 
which  we  know  to  be  ever  in  attendance  upon  matter, 
although  becoming  manifest  only  through  matter's  hetero 
geneity.  To  this  influence — without  daring  to  touch  it  at 
all  in  any  effort  at  explaining  its  awful  nature — I  have  re 
ferred  the  various  phenomena  of  electricity,  heat,  light,  mag 
netism  ;  and  more — of  vitality,  consciousness,  and  thought 
— in  a  word,  of  spirituality.  It  will  be  seen,  at  once,  then, 


134  EUREKA. 


that  the  ether  thus  conceived  is  radically  distinct  from  the 
ether  of  the  astronomers  ;  inasmuch  as  theirs  is  matter  and 
mine  not. 

With  the  idea  of  a  material  ether,  seems,  thus,  to  have 
departed  altogether  the  thought  of  that  universal  agglom 
eration  so  long  predetermined  by  the  poetical  fancy  of 
mankind  : — an  agglomeration  in  which  a  sound  Philosophy 
might  have  been  warranted  in  putting  faith,  at  least  to  a 
certain  extent,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  by  this 
poetical  fancy  it  had  been  so  predetermined.  But  so  far 
as  Astronomy — so  far  as  mere  Physics  have  yet  spoken,  the 
cycles  of  the  Universe  are  perpetual — the  Universe  has  no 
conceivable  end.  Had  an  end  been  demonstrated,  how 
ever,  from  so  purely  collateral  a  cause  as  an  ether,  Man's 
instinct  of  the  Divine  capacity  to  adapt,  would  have  rebell 
ed  against  the  demonstration.  We  should  have  been  forced 
to  regard  the  Universe  with  some  such  sense  of  dissatisfac 
tion  as  we  experience  in  contemplating  an  unnecessarily 
complex  work  of  human  art.  Creation  would  have  affect 
ed  us  as  an  imperfect  plot  in  a  romance,  where  the  denou- 
ment  is  awkwardly  brought  about  by  interposed  incidents 
external  and  foreign  to  the  main  subject ;  instead  of  spring 
ing  out  of  the  bosom  of  the  thesis — out  of  the  heart  of  the 
ruling  idea — instead  of  arising  as  a  result  of  the  primary 
proposition — as  inseparable  and  inevitable  part  and  parcel 
of  the  fundamental  conception  of  the  book. 

What  I  mean  by  the  symmetry  of  mere  surface  will 
now  be  more  clearly  understood.  It  is  simply  by  the  blan 
dishment  of  this  symmetry  that  we  have  been  beguiled  into 
the  general  idea  of  which  Madler's  hypothesis  is  but  a  part 


THE    UNIVERSE.  135 

— the  idea  of  the  vorticial  indrawing  of  the  orbs.  Dismiss 
ing  this  nakedly  physical  conception,  the  symmetry  of  prin 
ciple  sees  the  end  of  all  things  metaphysically  involved  in 
the  thought  of  a  beginning  ;  seeks  and  finds  in  this  origin 
of  all  things  the  rudiment  of  this  end ;  and  perceives  the 
impiety  of  supposing  this  end  likely  to  be  brought  about 
less  simply — less  directly — less  obviously — less  artistically 
— than  through  the  reaction  of  the  originating  Act. 

Recurring,  then,  to  a  previous  suggestion,  let  us  under 
stand  the  systems — let  us  understand  each  star,  with  its 
attendant  planets — as  but  a  Titanic  atom  existing  in  space 
with  precisely  the  same  inclination  for  Unity  which  char 
acterized,  in  the  beginning,  the  actual  atoms  after  their  irra 
diation  throughout  the  Universal  sphere.  As  these  original 
atoms  rushed  towards  each  other  in  generally  straight  lines, 
so  let  us  conceive  as  at  least  generally  rectilinear,  the  paths 
of  the  system-atoms  towards  their  respective  centres  of 
aggregation  : — and  in  this  direct  drav/ing  together  of  the 
systems  into  clusters,  with  a  similar  and  simultaneous 
drawing  together  of  the  clusters  themselves  while  under 
going  consolidation,  we  have  at  ler/gth  attained  the  great 
Now — the  awful  Present — the  Existing  Condition  of  the 
Universe. 

Of  the  still  more  awful  Future  a  not  irrational  analogy 
may  guide  us  in  framing  an  hypothesis.  The  equilibrium 
between  the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces  of  each  sys 
tem,  being  necessarily  destroyed  upon  attainment  of  a  cer 
tain  proximity  to  the  nucleus  of  the  cluster  to  which  it 
belongs,  there  must  occur,  at  once,  a  chaotic  or  seemingly 
chaotic  precipitation,  of  the  moons  upon  the  planets,  of  the 


136  EUREKA. 


planets  upon  the  suns,  and  of  the  suns  upon  the  nuclei ; 
and  the  general  result  of  this  precipitation  must  be  the 
gathering  of  the  myriad  now-existing  stars  of  the  firma 
ment  into  an  almost  infinitely  less  number  of  almost  infi 
nitely  superior  spheres.  In  being  immeasurably  fewer, 
the  worlds  of  that  day  will  be  immeasurably  greater  than 
our  own.  Then,  indeed,  amid  unfathomable  abysses,  will 
be  glaring  unimaginable  suns.  But  all  this  will  be  merely 
a  climacic  magnificence  foreboding  the  great  End.  Of 
this  End  the  new  genesis  described,  can  be  but  a  very  par 
tial  postponement.  While  undergoing  consolidation,  the 
clusters  themselves,  with  a  speed  prodigiously  accumula 
tive,  have  been  rushing  towards  their  own  general  centre — 
and  now,  with  a  thousand-fold  electric  velocity,  commen 
surate  only  with  their  material  grandeur  and  with  the  spir 
itual  passion  of  their  appetite  for  oneness,  the  majestic 
remnants  of  the  tribe  of  Stars  flash,  at  length,  into  a  com 
mon  embrace.  The  inevitable  catastrophe  is  at  hand. 

But  this  catastrophe — what  is  it  ?  We  have  seen  ac 
complished  the  ingathering  of  the  orbs.  Henceforward, 
are  we  not  to  understand  one  material  globe  of  globes  as 
constituting  and  comprehending  the  Universe?  Such  a 
fancy  would  be  altogether  at  war  with  every  assumption 
and  consideration  of  this  Discourse. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  that  absolute  reciprocity  of 
adaptation  which  is  the  idiosyncrasy  of  the  divine  Art — 
stamping  it  divine.  Up  to  this  point  of  our  reflections,  we 
have  been  regarding  the  electrical  influence  as  a  something 
by  dint  of  whose  repulsion  alone  Matter  is  enabled  to  exist 
in  that  state  of  diffusion  demanded  for  the  fulfilment  of 


THE     UNIVERSE.  .  137 

its  purposes  : — so  far,  in  a  word,  we  have  been  considering 
the  influence  in  question  as  ordained  for  Matter's  sake — to 
subserve  the  objects  of  matter.  With  a  perfectly  legiti 
mate  reciprocity,  we  are  now  permitted  to  look  at  Matter, 
as  created  solely  for  the  sake  of  this  influence — solely  to 
serve  the  objects  of  this  spiritual  Ether.  Through  the  aid 
— by  the  means — through  the  agency  of  Matter,  and  by 
dint  of  its  heterogeneity — is  this  Ether  manifested — is 
Spirit  individualized.  It  is  merely  in  the  development  of 
this  Ether,  through  heterogeneity,  that  particular  masses  of 
Matter  become  animate — sensitive — and  in  the  ratio  of 
their  heterogeneity ; — some  reaching  a  degree  of  sensitive 
ness  involving  what  we  call  Thought  and  thus  attaining 
Conscious  Intelligence. 

In  this  view,  we  are  enabled  to  perceive  Matter  as  a 
Means — not  as  an  End.  Its  purposes  are  thus  seen  to  have 
been  comprehended  in  its  diffusion  ;  and  with  the  return 
into  Unity  these  purposes  cease.  The  absolutely  consoli 
dated  globe  of  globes  would  be  objectless  : — therefore  not 
for  a  moment  could  it  continue  to  exist.  Matter,  created 
for  an  end,  would  unquestionably,  on  fulfilment  of  that  end, 
be  Matter  no  longer.  Let  us  endeavor  to  understand  that 
it  would  disappear,  and  that  God  would  remain  all  in  all. 

That  every  work  of  Divine  conception  must  coexist 
and  coexpire  with  its  particular  design,  seems  to  me  espe 
cially  obvious ;  and  I  make  no  doubt  that,  on  perceiving 
the  final  globe  of  globes  to  be  objectless,  the  majority  of  my 
readers  will  be  satisfied  with  my  "  therefore  it  cannot  con 
tinue  to  exist."  Nevertheless,  as  the  startling  thought  of  its 
instantaneous  disappearance  is  one  which  the  most  power- 


138  EUREKA. 


ful  intellect  cannot  be  expected  readily  to  entertain  on 
grounds  so  decidedly  abstract,  let  us  endeavor  to  look  at 
the  idea  from  some  other  and  more  ordinary  point  of  view  : 
— let  us  see  how  thoroughly  and  beautifully  it  is  corrobo 
rated  in  an  a  posteriori  consideration  of  Matter  as  we  ac 
tually  find  it. 

I  have  before  said  that  "  Attraction  and  Repulsion  being 
undeniably  the  sole  properties  by  which  Matter  is  mani 
fested  to  Mind,  we  are  justified  in  assuming  that  Matter 
exists  only  as  Attraction  and  Repulsion — in  other  words 
that  Attraction  and  Repulsion  are  Matter ;  there  being  no 
conceivable  case  in  which  we  may  not  employ  the  term 
Matter  and  the  terms  '  Attraction '  and  '  Repulsion '  taken 
together,  as  equivalent,  and  therefore  convertible,  expres 
sions  in  Logic."  * 

Now  the  very  definition  of  Attraction  implies  particu 
larity — the  existence  of  parts,  particles,  or  atoms  ;  for  we 
define  it  as  the  tendency  of  "  each  atom  &c.  to  every  other 
atom"  &c.  according  to  a  certain  law.  Of  course  where 
there  are  no  parts — where  there  is  absolute  Unity — where 
the  tendency  to  oneness  is  satisfied — there  can  be  no  At 
traction  : — this  has  been  fully  shown,  and  all  Philosophy 
admits  it.  When,  on  fulfilment  of  its  purposes,  then,  Mat 
ter  shall  have  returned  into  its  original  condition  of  One — 
a  condition  which  presupposes  the  expulsion  of  the  separa 
tive  ether,  whose  province  and  whose  capacity  are  limited 
to  keeping  the  atoms  apart  until  that  great  day  when,  this 
ether  being  no  longer  needed,  the  overwhelming  pressure 
of  the  finally  collective  Attraction  shall  at  length  just  suffi- 

*  Page  37. 


THE    UNIVERSE.  139 

ciently  predominate*  and  expel  it : — when,  I  say,  Matter, 
finally,  expelling  the  Ether,  shall  have  returned  into  abso 
lute  Unity, — it  will  then  (to  speak  paradoxically  for  the 
moment)  be  Matter  without  Attraction  and  without  Repul 
sion—in  other  words,  Matter  without  Matter — in  other 
words,  again,  Matter  no  more.  In  sinking  into  Unity,  it 
will  sink  at  once  into  that  Nothingness  which,  to  all  Finite 
Perception,  Unity  must  be — into  that  Material  Nihility 
from  which  alone  we  can  conceive  it  to  have  been  evoked 
— to  have  been  created  by  the  Volition  of  God. 

I  repeat  then — Let  us  endeavor  to  comprehend  that  the 
final  globe  of  globes  will  instantaneously  disappear,  and  that 
God  will  remain  all  in  all. 

But  are  we  here  to  pause  ?  Not  so.  On  the  Universal 
agglomeration  and  dissolution,  we  can  readily  conceive  that 
a  new  and  perhaps  totally  different  series  of  conditions  may 
ensue— another  creation  and  irradiation,  returning  into 
itself — another  action  and  reaction  of  the  Divine  Will. 
Guiding  our  imaginations  by  that  omniprevalent  law  of 
laws,  the  law  of  periodicity,  are  we  not,  indeed,  more  than 
justified  in  entertaining  a  belief — let  us  say,  rather,  in  in 
dulging  a  hope — that  the  processes  we  have  here  ventured 
to  contemplate  will  be  renewed  forever,  and  forever,  and 
forever ;  a  novel  Universe  swelling  into  existence,  and  then 
subsiding  into  nothingness,  at  every  throb  of  the  Heart 
Divine  ? 

And  now — this  Heart  Divine — what  is  it  ?  It  is  our 
own, 

*  "  Gravity,  therefore,  must  be  the  strongest  of  forces." — See  page  39. 


140  E  U  B,  E  K  A. 


Let  not  the  merely  seeming  irreverence  of  this  idea 
frighten  our  souls  from  that  cool  exercise  of  consciousness 
— from  that  deep  tranquillity  of  self-inspection — through 
which  alone  we  can  hope  to  .attain'  the  presence  of  this, 
the  most  sublime  of  truths,  and  look  it  leisurely  in  the 
face. 

The  phenomena  on  which  our  conclusions  must  at  this 
point  depend,  are  merely  spiritual  shadows,  but  not  the  less 
thoroughly  substantial. 

We  walk  about,  amid  the  destinies  of  our  world-exist 
ence,  encompassed  by  dim  but  ever  present  Memories  of  a 
Destiny  more  vast — very  distant  in  the  by-gone  time,  and 
infinitely  awful. 

We  live  out  a  Youth  peculiarly  haunted  by  such  dreams  ; 
yet  never  mistaking  them  for  dreams.  As  Memories  we 
know  them.  During  our  Youth  the  distinction  is  too  clear 
to  deceive  us  even  for  a  moment. 

So  long  as  this  Youth  endures,  the  feeling  that  we  exist, 
is  the  most  natural  of  all  feelings.  We  understand  it  tho 
roughly.  That  there  was  a  period  at  which  we  did  not 
exist — or,  that  it  might  so  have  happened  that  we  never 
had  existed  at  all — are  the  considerations,  indeed,  which 
during  this  youth,  we  find  difficulty  in  understanding.  Why 
we  should  not  exist,  is,  up  to  the  epoch  of  our  Manhood,  of 
all  queries  the  most  unanswerable.  Existence — self-exist 
ence — existence  from  all  Time  and  to  all  Eternity — seems, 
up  to  the  epoch  of  Manhood,  a  normal  and  unquestionable 
condition  : — seems,  because  it  is. 

But  now  comes  the  period  at  which  a  conventional 
World-Reason  awakens  us  from  the  truth  of  our  dream. 


THE    UNIVERSE.  141 

Doubt,  Surprise  and  Incomprehensibility  arrive  at  the  same 
moment.  They  say  : — "  You  live  and  the  time*  was  when 
you  lived  not.  You  have  been  created.  An  Intelligence 
exists  greater  than  your  own  ;  and  .it  is  only  through  this 
Intelligence  you  live  at  all."  These  things  we  struggle  to 
comprehend  and  cannot : — cannot,  because  these  things, 
being  untrue,  are  thus,  of  necessity,  incomprehensible. 

No  thinking  being  lives  who,  at  some  luminous  point  of 
his  life  of  thought,  has  not  felt  himself  lost  amid  the  surges 
of  futile  efforts  at  understanding,  or  believing,  that  anything 
exists  greater  than  his  own  soul.  *  The  utter  impossibility 
of  any  one's  soul  feeling  itself  inferior  to  another ;  the  in 
tense,  overwhelming  dissatisfaction  and  rebellion  at  the 
thought ; — these,  with  the  omniprevalent  aspirations  at  per 
fection,  are  but  the  spiritual,  coincident  with  the  material, 
struggles  towards  the  original  Unity — are,  to  my  mind  at 
least,  a  species  of  proof  far  surpassing  what  Man  terms  de 
monstration,  that  no  one  soul  is  inferior  to  another — that 
nothing  is,  or  can  be,  superior  to  any  one  soul — that  eacjh. 
soul  is,  in  part,  its  own  God — its  own  Creator  : — in  a  word, 
that  God — the  material  and  spiritual  God — now  exists  solely 
in  the  diffused  Matter  and  Spirit  of  the  Universe  ;  and  that 
the  regathering  of  this  diffused  Matter  and  Spirit  will  be 
but  the  re-constitution  of  the  purely  Spiritual  and  Indivi 
dual  God. 

In  this  view,  and  in  this  view  alone,  we  comprehend 
the  riddles  of  Divine  Injustice — of  Inexorable  Fate.  In  this 
view  alone  the  existence  of  Evil  becomes  intelligible  ;  but 
in  this  view  it  becomes  more — it  becomes  endurable.  Our 
souls  no  longer  rebel  at  a  Sorrow  which  we  ourselves  have 


142  EUREKA. 


imposed  upon  ourselves,  in  furtherance  of  our  own  pur 
poses — with  a  view — if  even  with  a  futile  view — to  the 
extension  of  our  own  Joy. 

I  have  spoken  of  Memories  that  haunt  us  during  our 
youth.  They  sometimes  pursue  us  even  in  our  Manhood  : 
— assume  gradually  less  and  less  indefinite  shapes  : — now 
and  then  speak  to  us  with  low  voices,  saying : 

"  There  was  an  epoch  in  the  Night  of  Time,  when  a 
still-existent  Being  existed — one  of  an  absolutely  infinite 
number  of  similar  Beings  that  people  the  absolutely  infinite 
domains  of  the  absolutety  infinite  space.*  It  was  not  and 
is  not  in  the  power  of  this  Being — any  more  than  it  is  in 
your  own — to  extend,  by  actual  increase,  the  joy  of  his 
Existence ;  but  just  as  it  is  in  your  power  to  expand  or  to 
concentrate  your  pleasures  (the  absolute  amount  of  happi 
ness  remaining  always  the  same)  so  did  and  does  a  similar 
capability  appertain  to  this  Divine  Being,  who  thus  passes 
his  Eternity  in  perpetual  variation  of  Concentrated  Self 
and  almost  Infinite  Self-Diffusion.  What  you  call  The 
Universe  is  but  his  present  expansive  existence.  He  now 
feels  his  life  through  an  infinity  of  imperfect  pleasures — the 
partial  and  pain-intertangled  pleasures  of  those  inconceiva 
bly  numerous  things  which  you  designate  as  his  creatures, 
but  which  are  really  but  infinite  individualizations  of  Him 
self.  All  these  creatures — all — those  which  you  term  ani 
mate,  as  well  as  those  to  whom  you  deny  life  for  no  better 
reason  than  that  you  do  not  behold  it  in  operation — all 
these  creatures  have,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  a  capacity 

See  page  102-103-Paragraph  commencing  "  I  reply  that  the  right,"  and 
ending  "  proper  and  particular  God." 


THE     UNIVERSE.  143 

for  pleasure  and  for  pain  : — but  the  general  sum  of  their  sen 
sations  is  precisely  that  amount  of  Happiness  which  apper 
tains  by  right  to  the  Divine  Being  when  concentrated  with 
in  Himself.  These  creatures  are  all,  too,  more  or  less  con 
scious  Intelligences  ;  conscious,  first,  of  a  proper  identity ; 
conscious-,  secondly  and  by  faint  indeterminate  glimpses,  of 
an  identity  with  the  Divine  Being  of  whom  we  speak — of 
an  identity  with  God.  Of  the  two  classes  of  consciousness, 
fancy  that  the  former  will  grow  weaker,  the  latter  stronger, 
during  the  long  succession  of  ages  which  must  elapse  before 
these  myriads  of  individual  Intelligences  become  blended — 
when  the  bright  stars  become  blended — into  One.  Think 
that  the  sense  of  individual  identity  will  be  gradually  merged 
in  the  general  consciousness — that  Man,  for^example,  ceasing 
imperceptibly  to  feel  himself  Man,  will  at  length  attain  that 
awfully  triumphant  epoch  when  he  shall  recognize  his  ex 
istence  as  that  of  Jehovah.  In  the  meantime  bear  in  mind 
that  all  is  Life — Life — Life  within  Life — the  less  within  the 
greater,  and  all  within  the  Spirit  Divine. 


THE    END. 


155    Broadway,    NEW    YORK.  14'2  Strand,   LONDON. 

Of  late  firm  of  WILXT  &  PUTNAM. 


New  Works  in  Press, 

Or    recently    published,  by 

GEORGE    P.    PUTNAM, 

155  Broadway,  New  York. 

G.  P.  PUTNAM  has  the  pleasure  of  announcing  that,  agreeably  to  his  contract  with  the 
distinguished  author,  he  has  now  in  the  course  of  publication 

A  new,  uniform,  and  complete  edition 

OF   THE 

Works    of   Washington    Irving, 

Revised   and   enlarged    by   the   Author, 

In  Twelve  Elegant  Duodecimo  Volumes, 
Beautifully  printed  with  new  type,  and  on  superior  paper,  made  expressly  for  the  purpose. 

The  first  volume  of  the  Series  will  be 

The    Sketch-Book, 

complete  in  one  volume, 
which  will  be  ready  on  the  first  day  of  September. 

Knickerbocker's    History    of    New    York, 

with  revisions  and    copious   additions, 
will  be  published  on  the  1st  of  October. 

The    Life    and   Voyages  of  Columbus, 

Vol.  I.  on  the  1st  of  November, 

and  the  succeeding  volumes  will  be  issued  on  the  first  day  of  each  month  until  com 
pleted  ; — as  follows : 
The  Sketch-Book,  in  one  volume.         The    Crayon    Miscellany,  in   one 


Knickerbocker's  New  York,  in  one 

volume. 

Tales  of  a  Traveller,  in  one  volume. 
Bracebridge  Hall,  in  one  volume. 
The  Conquest  of  Grenada,  in  one 

volume. 

The  Jllhambra,  in  one  volume. 
The  Spanish  Legends,  in  one  vol. 


vol.  —  Jlbbotsford,  Newstead, 
The  Prairies,  Sfc. 

Life  and  Voyages  of  Columbus, 
and  The  Companions  of  Co 
lumbus,  2  vols. 

Adventures  of  Captain  Bonneville, 
one  vol. 

JLstoria,  one  volume. 


The    Illustrated    Sketch-Book. 

In  October  will  be  published, 

The    Sketch. Book. 
BY    WASHINGTON    IRVING. 

One  volume,  square  octavo. 

Illustrated  with  a  series  of  highly-finished  Engravings  on  wood,  from  Designs  by  Darley 
and  others,  engraved  in  the  best  style  by  Childs,  Herrick,  &c.  This  edition  will  be  printed 
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book  for  all  seasons. 


New  Works  published 


The    Illustrated    Knickerbocker, 

With  a  series  of  Original  Designs,  in  one  vol.,  octavo,  is  also  in  preparation. 

Mr.  Putnam  has  also  the  honor  to  announce  that  he  will  publish  at  intervals  (in  coix- 
nexion,  and  uniform  with  the  other  collected  writings), 

Mr.  Irving 's  New  Works, 

now  nearly  ready  for  the  press :  including 

The    Life   of  Mohammed;     The    Life  of   Washington;     new 
volumes  of  Miscellanies,  Biographies,  &c. 

*f*This  being  the  first  uniform  and  complete  edition  of  Mr.  Irving's  works,  either  in  this 
country  or  in  Europe,  the  publisher  confidently  believes  that  the  undertaking  will  meet 
with  a  prompt  and  cordial  response.  To  say  this,  is  perhaps  superfluous  and  impertinent ; 
for  it  is  a  truism  that  no  American  book-case  (not  to  say  library)  can  be  well  filled  without 
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models  of  composition. 

G.  P.  Putnam  has  also  made  arrangements  for  the  early  commencement  of  new  work* 
or  new  editions  of  the  works  of 

Miss  C.  M.  Sedgewick,  Prof.  rf.  Gray,  Leigh  Hunt, 

Chas.  Fenno  Hoffman,   Mrs  E   Oakes  Smith,  Thomas  Carlyle, 

George  H.  C  a /vert,         Mrs.  C.  M.  Kirkland,  R  Monckton  MilnesT 

J.  Bayard  Taylor,  Mary  Howitt,  Mm.  Jameson, 

8.  Wells  Williams,         W.  M.  Thackeray,  Charles  Lamb, 

A.  J.  Downing,  Thos.  Hood,  Elliot  Warburton. 

The  following  new  works  are  now  ready,  or  will  be  published  this  season  : 

I. 

Sophisms    of    the    Protective    Policy, 

Translated  from  the  French  of  F.  Bastiat.  With  an  introduction  by  Francis  Lieber,  LL.D. 
Professor  in  South  Carolina  College,  Editor  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Americana,  &c.  12mo.  75 
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ably  wiser,  richer,  and  happier  than  the  present." — Mirror. 

II. 

Grecian    and    Roman    Mythology: 

With  original  illustrations.  Adapted  for  the  use  of  Universities  and  High  Schools,  and  for 
popular  reading.  By  M.  A.  Dwight.  With  an  introduction  by  Tayler  Lewis,  Professor  of 
Greek,  University  of  New  York.  12mo.  (On  1st  September.) 

Also  a  fine  edition  in  octavo,  with  illustrations. 

%*  This  work  has  been  prepared  with  great  care,  illustrated  with  20  effective  outline 
drawings,  and  is  designed  to  treat  the  subject  in  an  original,  comprehensive,  and  unex 
ceptionable  manner,  so  as  to  fill  the  place  as  a  text  book  which  is  yet  misapplied  ;  while 
it  will  also  be  an  attractive  and  readable  table  book  for  general  use.  It  will  be  at  once 
introduced  as  a  text  book  in  the  University  of  New  York  and  other  colleges  and  schools. 

III. 

Eureka:    a    Prose    Poem. 

Or  the  Physical  and  Metaphysical  Universe. 

By  Edgar  A.  Poe,  Esq.      Handsomely  printed,  12mo.  Cloth,  75  cents. 
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on  Steel.    1'Jino.  elegantly  bound,  $1  50. 


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A  new  and  superior  edition  of  the  PEARLS  OF  AMERICAN  POETRY  will  also  be 
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V. 

Stye  Book  of  JDatntg 

In  an  elegant  small  folio  volume. 

Lays     of    the     Western     World. 

VI. 

Dr.    Klipstein's    Anglo-Saxon  Course   of  Study. 

In  uniform  12mo.  volumes. 

A  Grammar  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Language.  By  Louis  F.  Klipstein,  AA,  LL.M.  and 
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***This  work  recommends  itself  particularly  to  the  attention  of  every  American 
student  who  "  glories  in  his  A  glo-Saxon  descent"1  or  Teutonic  lineage,  as  well  as  of  all 
who  desire  an  acquaintance  wi  h  a  language  which  lies  as  the  foundation  of  the  English, 
and  throws  a  light  upon  its  elements  and  structure,  derivable  from  no  other  source.  Of 
the  importance  and  interesting  nature  of  the  study  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  we  agree 
with  those  who  think  that  the  time  is  coming  when  it  will  be  considered  "  utterly  disgrace 
ful  for  any  well  bred  Englishman  or  American  "  to  have  neglected  it.  With  regard  to  the 
merits  of  Dr.  Klipstein's  Grammar,  we  will  only  say,  that  it  has  been  already  adopted  at 
a  text-book  in  some  of  the  leading  Institutions  of  our  country. 
[The  following  are  also  in  press.] 

•H. 

Analecta  Anslo-Saxonica,  with  an  Introductory  Ethnographical  Essay,  Copious  Notes,  Cri 
tical  and  Explanatory,  and  a  Glossary  in  which  are  shown  the  Indo-Germanic  and  other 
Affinities  of  the  Language.  By  the  same. 

In  this  work  appear  the  fruits  of  considerable  research,  and,  we  may  add,  learning. 
The  Ethnology  of  Europe  is  succincUv,  but  clearly  illustrated,  the  Anglo-Saxon  language 
completely  analysed,  revealing  the  utmost  harmony  of  combination  from  its  elements,  its 
forms  and  roots  compared  with  those  in  kindred  dialects  and  cognate  tongues,  its  po.-itioo 
in  the  Teutonic  family  and  Indo-Germanic  range  established,  and  the  genuine  relation  of  the 
English  toils  great  parent  properly  se.t  forth.  To  those  who  are  fond  of  the  comparative 
study  of  language,  the  Glossary  will  prove  an  invaluable  aid,  apart  from  its  particular 
object. 

Hi. 

Natale  Sancti  Gregorii  Papae.— JE\ fric's  Homily  on  the  Birth-day  of  St.  Gregory,  and  Col 
lateral  Extracts  from  King  Alfred's  version  of  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History  and  the 
Saxon  Chronicle,  with  a  full  rendering  into  English,  Notes  Critical  and  Explanatory, 
and  an  Index  of  Words.  By  the  same. 

IV. 

Extracts  from  the  Anglo  Saxon-Gospels,  a  Portion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Paraphrase  of  th« 
Book  of  Psalms,  and  other  Selections  of  a  Sacn-d  Order  in  the  same  Language,  with  a 
Translation  into  English,  and  Notes  Critical  and  Explanatory.  By  the  same. 

These  two  works  are  prepared  in  such  a  way  as  in  themselves,  with  the  aid  of  the 
Grammar,  to  afford  every  facility  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  Student.  ^Elfric's  Homily  is  renwrkar 
ble  for  beauty  of  composition,  and  interesting  as  setting  forth  Augustine's  Mission  to  the 
"  Land  of  the  Angles." 

v. 

Tha  Halgan  Godspel  on  Englisc— the  Anglo-Saxon  Version  of  the  Holy  Gospels.  Edited 
by  Benjamin  Thorpe,  F.S.A.  Reprinted  by  the  same.  Now  ready. 

This,  the  earliest  "  English  "  version  of  the  Four  Gospels,  will  be  found  interesting  to 
the  anMquarian  and  theologian,  as  we  1  as  serviceable  to  the  student  in  his  investigations 
of  the  language.  The  Text,  besides  the  usual  but  unbroken  division,  appears,  with  the 
Rubrics,  as  read  in  the  early  Anglican  Church. 

Nearly  Ready. 

Dr.    Boswortli's   Compendious    Anglo-Saxon    Dic 
tionary.     Small  8vo. 


New   Works  published  by — 


VII. 

Study    of    Modern    Lfla  n  g  u  a  g  e  s . 

Part  First;  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  German,  and  English. 

By  L.  F.  Klipstein,  A  A.  LL.M.  and  Ph.  D.    One  Vol.  Imperial  8vo. 

75  cents  paper;  $1  00  cloth. 

This  work,  which  is  intended  equally  for  the  simultaneous  and  the  separate  study  of  the 
languages  that  it  sets  forth,  and  which  is  adapted  as  well  for  the  native  of  Germany, 
France,  Italy,  Spain,  or  Portugal,  as  for  him  to  whom  English  is  vernacular,  in  the  acquire 
ment  of  any  one  of  the  other  tongues  besides  his  own,  will  be  found  an  acceptable  manual 
not  only  to  the  tyro,  but  to  the  more  advanced  scholar.  The  reading  portion  of  the  matter 
is  interesting,  and  the  text  in  every  case  remarkably  correct,  while  the  Elementary  Phrases, 
forms  of  Cards,  Letters,  Bills  of  Exchange,  Promissory  Notes,  Receipts,  &c.,  in  the  six 
languages,  constitute  what  has  long  been  a  desideratum  from  the  American  press.  For 
the  comparative  study  of  the  Romanic  tongues  the  work  affords  unusual  facilities. 

VIII. 

Pedestrian     Tour    in    Europe. 

Views  a-Foot ;   or  Europe  seen  with  Knapsack  and  Staff. 

By  J.  Bayard  Taylor. 

A  new  edition  with  an  additional  chapter,  and  a  sketch  of  the  author  in  pedestrian  cos 
tume,  from  a  drawing  by  T.  Buchanan  Read.  12mo.  Cloth. 

IX. 

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Clarke's    Shakspeare    Concordance. 

A  Complete  Concordance  to  Shakspeare  :  being  a  Verbal  Index  to  ALL  the  PASSAGES 
MI  the  Dramatic  Works  of  the  Poet.    By  Mrs.  Cojvden  Clarke. 
"  Order  gave  each  thing  view." 

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passage  in  Shakspeare's  Works).  Price  $6.  Cloth. 

"The  result  of  sixteen  years  of  untiring  labor.  The  different  editions  of  Shakspeare 
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t*\e  crrr^'-tness  of  the  work.  As  it  now  stands,  a  person  can  find  a  particular  passage  in 
Snakspeure  by  simply  remembering  one  word  of  it,  and  is  also  referred  to  the  act  and  scene 
of  the  play  in  which  it  occurs.  As  a  mere  dictionary  of  Shakspearian  language  and 
phrases,  it  is  of  great  value  ;  but  it  is  also  a  dictionary  of  his  thoughts  and  imaginations. 
It  altogether  supersedes  the  volumes  of  Twiss  and  Ayscough,  and  should  be  on  every 
student's  shelves  " — Boston  Courier. 

***  This  extraordinary  work  is  printed  in  London  and  the  price  there  at  present  is 
£%.  5s.  Od.  or  about  $12  A  large  part  of  the  edition  having  been  purchased  for  this  market, 
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Also — By  same  Author. 

The    Book    of    Shakspeare    Proverbs. 

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Dr.  Lieber's  Poetical  Address  to  the  American  Republic. 

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%*  Dr.  Lieber,  the  distinguished  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  South  Carolina  Col- 
1  ege.  Author  of  "Political  Ethics,"  &c..  has  just  sailed  for  his  native  country — Germany — 
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his  adopted  country — and  his  able  and  valuable  opinions  on  American  Society  and  Progress, 
carry  with  them  a  peculiar  interest  at  this  time. 


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Bastiat. — Sophisms  of  the  Protective  Policy.     Translated  from 

the  French  of  P.  Bastiat.  With  an  Introduction,  by  Francis  Lieber,  LL.D.,  Professor 
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whether  acquainted  with  drawing  or  not,  to  instruct  his  pupils  to  advantage. 
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Coleridge. — Biographia  Literaria;   or,  Biographical  Sketches  of 

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bus,  in  two  volumes. 
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